Spike Lee has almost always been a director worth watching, even when his work has fallen short of the brilliant promise of such early narratives like She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Bluesand Malcolm X(not to mention his powerful documentaries, among them 4 Little Girlsand When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts). A hard-working, prolific and creative – if not always consistent – filmmaker, Spike Lee deserves his place in the pantheon of great American cinéastes, and will surely be watched by many for as long as movies are a part of global culture. Beyond that, he is also a sharp examiner of race, and racism, in this country, and so is the perfect person to take on the subject of his latest project, BlacKkKlansman.

Based on Ron Stallworth’s book about his experience infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s as the lone African-American detective on the police force of Colorado Springs, Colorado, the film tells a tale so bizarre that it could only happen in fiction … except that it’s all true (well, the main details are, anyway, as I assume the screenwriters have taken their usual dramatic liberties here and there). Young and full of brash nerve, Stallworth (a very fine John David Washington, of HBO’s Ballersfame) calls up the local chapter of the Klan one day, a little giddy from his promotion to the department’s intelligence division (a reward for his reluctant spying on former Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, or Kwame Ture, as he was by that point known). Unfortunately, he gives his real name – rookie mistake – and so not only must he find a white officer to go undercover in his place, but that person must use his identity, as well. It’s a serious film, but also not without its moments of high humor.

As the story progresses, it only gets stranger, as the white “Ron Stallworth” – a Jewish cop named Flip Zimmerman, played by a terrific Adam Driver (Silence) – finds himself alternately in danger and in complete control, able to manipulate the rather stupid (comically inept, in fact) racists in “the organization” (as the KKK prefers to be called) and gather intel on an upcoming attack on the local Black Student Union. There is one particularly suspicious zealot who keeps pushing a “Jew test” on him, but Flip pushes back, and all is well (for a while, anyway). No major plot spoilers here, but along the way the real Ron strikes up a phone acquaintance with Klan leader David Duke – played by Topher Grace (Don Peyote), perfect in the role – who shines only in comparison to his racist brethren. Still, silly as they may be, these psychopathic wannabes have murder in their hearts, and Lee never lets us forget it.

Indeed, part of the challenge Lee faces in BlacKkKlansman is balancing polemics with drama, avoiding the pitfalls of exposition that the former brings out in even the best artists while crafting a taut enough example of the latter to hold our attention throughout. That he mostly succeeds is a testament to his filmmaking skill. Where he doesn’t quite pull it off is in his excessive use of composer Terence Blanchard’s music, his occasionally meandering camera that takes us away from the main focus of the action, his female characters without much depth, and his overreliance on broad comedy to lampoon the Klansmen. I prefer a lighter touch, but if you like the Lee of Chi-Raq– far more over-the-top in its aesthetic and performances than this – you will most likely find this film a model of nuance.

All of that said, I loved the ending, when Lee leaves behind the fictionalizing of real events and cuts straight to documentary footage from during and after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Earlier in the film, he has David Duke use the phrase “America First” (adopted by the Trump campaign, despite its fraught history); here, at the conclusion, he shows Donald Trump, 45th President of these United States, post-Charlottesville, claiming there was fault on both sides, though Lee makes sure we first see the neo-Nazis marching through town, chanting “Jews will not replace us” as they hold up burning torches. And then there’s the real-life David Duke, himself, praising Trump for saving America. Coming after the context of BlacKkKlansman, it’s clear that 1+1 = 2. The film may be flawed, but its message is not. If that offends, then I hear there’s an “organization” out there that is looking for recruits.

Have no fear, O Bruce the Shark (of Jawsfame): though you be but a (mechanical) great white, no (CGI) megalodon – the largest shark that ever lived! – can take you, whatever images we see in The Meg, thenew blockbuster-hopeful thriller from Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure). Good fun in many ways, this latest fantastical fish tale lacks the sharp dramatic bite and tasty narrative morsels of that 1975 classic. Still, it offers some cinematic treats of its own, including a pleasant and diverse ensemble headlined by the always watchable Jason Statham (The Mechanic). With solid supporting work from folks like Winston Chao (1911), Cliff Curtis (The Dark Horse), Page Kennedy (Gerald on the short-lived CBS series Rush Hour) – though his character flirts dangerously with African-American stereotypes – Li Bingbing (Resident Evil: Retribution), Rainn Wilson (The Rocker) and others, including the adorably precocious young actress Shuya Sophia Cai, it mainly succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is entertain.

It is not hard to imagine, therefore, that The Meg should take a solid chomp out of this weekend’s box office, though the silliness of its conceit will probably keep it from completely swimming away with the summer. Statham plays Jonas Taylor, who in a prologue sequence leaves beloved friends to die in a deep-sea rescue mission interrupted by something … big … unseen by all but sensed by him. Flash forward five years and Jonas is drinking himself to oblivion in Thailand while some erstwhile colleagues now work for Chinese scientific entrepreneur Zhang (Chao), who has built an offshore marine-biology research facility near the Mariana Trench, all funded by billionaire Morris (Wilson).

The team’s goal is to go beyond the perceived bottom of the trench – ostensibly a layer of near-frozen gasses below which mysterious life forms may thrive – and explore the unknown. Unfortunately, the advance submersible, with three crew members aboard, is attacked by something … big … and disabled. Apparently, despite his disgrace and current state of inebriation, there’s only man to save them, so off Zhang and mission commander Mac (Curtis) go to recruit Jonas. Meanwhile, Zhang’s biologist daughter Suyin (Li) – mother to cute kid Meiying (Cai) – jumps in a sea craft of her own to plunge 11,000 meters down before it’s too late. Will Jonas pull through? Stay tuned. And that’s only the opening half hour …

Soon, after that baroque set-up is complete, we meet the monster from the deep which, it turns out, is a long-extinct (or so we thought) megalodon – again, the largest shark that ever lived! – and the movie really gets going. Chewing away at fellow fish, sea mammals and humans with equal abandon, the “meg,” as s/he is quickly dubbed, proves a formidable opponent to those chasing it. Unfortunately, despite the often-tense, well-rendered action scenes, Turtletaub and his three screenwriters – working from a book by Steve Alten – insist on a lot of sentimental filler between barely sketched characters that does little more than slow things down.

Fortunately, Statham and company have oodles of charisma to spare, for the most part carrying us through the sections that stop the story cold. I wish that Kennedy’s DJ – tech savvy but ocean stupid – weren’t written to crack wise and manic all the time, as are so many other black screen parts, but you can’t have everything, and there’s enough self-awareness in some of his dialogue to carry us through the cringe. Given that we need to suspend our disbelief for the majority of the movie, anyway, perhaps the best approach is to just sit back, enjoy the cast, the tongue-in-cheek humor, and the giant shark’s ongoing feeding frenzy. Just don’t go in the water.

Leave No Trace is the fourth feature film from Debra Granik, a modern feminist, who previously made the award-winning Winter’s Bone, (2010), Down to the Bone (2004) and a feature -length documentary named Stray Dog (2014). She crafts her work in what is referred to as “slow-film.” If there is a weakness to the film it is the methodical pacing.

Film Image: Leave No Trace

Based on a novel by Peter Rock titled “My Abandonment “and fueled by actual events, the under $5 million pic is about a father and daughter who live way off the grid. The father is Will (Ben Foster) a veteran suffering with PTSD and his daughter, Tom, played pitch perfect by a young New Zealand born actress (who should have a long career ahead of her) whose name is Thomasin McKenzie. They live in the eight square mile Forest Park in the mountains west of Portland, Oregon. Adapted for the screen by Granik and her partner Anne Rosellini this film is an emotional powerhouse and one of the year’s most satisfying filmic experiences. The acting is truly remarkable!

Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 2) creates a dystopian story that eerily resembles the internment camps set up here in the USA to deal with our immigration crisis. In the interest of full disclosure, the story is loosely adapted from a YA series of the same name by scribe Alexandra Bracken.

Film Image: The Darkest Minds

It stars Amandia Stenberg as Ruby, a teen whose unique genome makes her super human and spares her life from a wicked child killing virus. Ruby leads her fellow teens into a resistance against the anachronistic elders who briefly incarcerate them. The story is mostly about four adolescents as they encounter visceral experiences much like children that grow up in a timeless war zone. The film is replete in high production values but lacks a compelling and engaging story. Its hocus-focus including levitation, is not enough for mature audiences. Its attempt to lift its audience up mostly leaves you with a sense of narrative dysfunction.

Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon play classic fish out water characters flopping about in a world of gunplay and car chases in The Spy Who Dumped Me, directed by Susanna Fogel, and co-starring Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, and Gillian Anderson. After celebrating another lackluster birthday, Audrey, played by Kunis, and her best friend Morgan, played by McKinnon, are dumbfounded when her ex-boyfriend Drew, played by Theroux, barges back into her life and tells her that he is a C.I.A. agent. Uncertain if Drew has gone off the deep end for good, Audrey and Morgan stumble into the crossfire of rogue foreign assassins and MI6 operatives, played by Sam Heughan and Gillian Anderson. These people are armed, dangerous, and desperate to find a hard drive which retains vital information that could put a lot of people in danger.

Susanna Fogel gives the direction and space her two leading ladies need to develop their infectious chemistry but fails to provide the bankable elements of the spy and comedy genres with the same amount of love. Considering the quantity of plot exposition crammed into every second of the film’s runtime, it’s incredible how many of its scenes feel directionless, led solely by Kate McKinnon’s improvisation. Comedies structured around improvised scenes can bring a level of unpredictability to the cinematic experience; however, if the director fails to know when to yell cut, then an hour-and-a-half-long film can feel like two hours.

Fogel and co-screenwriter David Iserson treat the iconography of the spy films in their script as an obligation rather than as loyal fans wanting to create a new dimension for the genre. When the script has run out of jokes or all-around wit, it resorts to forced, exploitative violence. A similar female-led spy comedy that tried the same balancing act three years ago, and succeeded, was Paul Feig’s Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy. Susanna Fogel wants to jump right into the payoff of the buddy comedy and the hair-raising spy action but refuses to fully commit to the vital setup commonly found in a film’s first act. Without this setup, and without the proper emotional context, the enjoyment audiences have had with these genres for decades falls flat on its face.

Just last October (2017), we saw the release of director Simon Curtis’ Goodbye Christopher Robin, an affecting – if largely fabricated – biopic about the real-life boy at the center of author A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh adventures. Though there was not much “docu” in that docudrama, it was well-acted and frequently well-scripted, if not always gripping. Still, it mostly held one’s interest.

Bewilderingly, less than a year later we now have the similarly titled Christopher Robin, from director Marc Forster (World War Z) and the many folks at Disney. With three different credited screenwriters – Alex Ross Perry (Golden Exits), Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) and Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures) – shaping a story by Greg Brooker (Stuart Little) and Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider), it’s not only the title that confuses. So many chefs stirring the creative pot – no matter their individual talent – has created a murky stew that now and then delivers tasty goods, but all too often congeals into hardened slop like the poorly mixed concoction that it is. If you like a film where everyone repeats the central, expositional message – work less, play more – ad nauseum, then this might work better for you then it did for me.

Unlike its immediate predecessor, however, this movie does not purport to be anything but fantasy. From the titular subject’s magical 1930s childhood we jump to his dreary 1950s professional career, from which no amount of professed concern for wife and daughter can rescue him. Christopher Robin’s workaholism threatens to destroy his marriage and his own child’s wilting youth, until a spilled pot of honey summons the playmates of his past to turn things around. Combining CGI and live-action sequences, the movie comes alive once Pooh, Eyore, Tigger, Piglet and friends join forces to liven up the proceedings. Sadly, by the time they show up, Forster and company have so mired us in gloom that we would need far more enchantment than we get to return the film to some form of dramatic equilibrium. It’s not a total loss – and fans of the books should find plenty to enjoy – but it’s far from great, and quite dense, plot-wise, for a supposed kids movie.

As Christopher Robin, Ewan McGregor (T2 Trainspotting) is his usual appealing self, for what it’s worth. Hayley Atwell (Jimi: All Is by My Side) gets the thankless role of Evelyn, his nag . . . I mean, his wife, while young newcomer Bronte Carmichael has a slightly better time of it as Madeline, his daughter. Voice actor Jim Cummings reprises his long-running turn as Pooh (begun in 1988, for Disney’s four-season The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), also voicing Tigger here, supported by the likes of Sophie Okonedo (After Earth) and Brad Garrett (Robert on CBS’ nine-season Everybody Loves Raymond), among others. Sometimes cute, often tedious, and only occasionally deft in its storytelling, Christopher Robin would have probably come out better with just one script-cook in its cinematic kitchen.

Alone in the Game(David McFarland/Natalie Metzger/Michael Rohrbaugh, 2018) 3½ out of 4 stars.

A moving and well-told profile of the challenges faced by LGBTQ athletes, Audience Network’s Alone in the Game – from first-time writer/producer David McFarland and directors Natalie Metzger (Special Blood) and Michael Rohrbaugh (making his feature debut) – offers profound documentary truths for all to see. It’s already difficult being gay in this world; now try adding the pressure of millions of fans’ expectations, along with the business imperatives of professional sports leagues. The result is a roiling cauldron of suppressed identities and emotions that bode well for no one. The unfortunate souls who must navigate these treacherous, competitive waters are not just “alone in the game,” but alone in the crowd, adrift in a sea of their own misery.

Or so it seems, at the start. By the end of this compelling, just-over-90-minute movie, however, we follow enough positive trajectories to emerge feeling as if things are getting better. Today’s politicians in power may not always be so helpful to the cause of civil and LGBTQ rights, but there are enough allies within the pro and college sports worlds that a number of our main characters experience encouraging change. From the high-school trans boy who longs to officially become Trevor (from Veronica) and join the wrestling team, to the college football player who comes out to his coaches, to the Olympic and professional athletes who open up about their love lives, we get a glimpse of what the future might hold if only the human tendency towards tribal prejudice can be overcome. When the film works, which it almost always does (as long as it avoids the pitfalls of sentimental promotional storytelling), it is nothing short of profound.

I particularly admire the way McFarland, Metzger and Rohrbaugh square the difficult circle of puncturing the inflated balloon of hype that drives our obsession with sports while simultaneously admiring those paragons of the athletic breed whose example we should all emulate. We meet folks like soccer star Robbie Rogers, Vanderbilt’s Director of Athletics David Williams III, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, former Pepperdine basketball players (and romantic partners) Layana White and Haley Videckis, Olympic skier (and silver medalist) Gus Kenworthy, triathlete Chris Mosier, former New England Patriot Ryan O’Callaghan, ESPN journalist LZ Granderson, and many more. They are an inspiring bunch, offering first despair and then hope, showing us the way forward to a more just universe. As a group, they prove that being a gay athlete need not lead to solitude, for they are all together, in the game.

Tom Cruise returns as the driven I.M.F. operative Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-starring Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames. After a discreet trade-off goes awry, three nuclear bombs wind up in the hands of a new terrorist organization called the Apostles. Impossible Mission Force (I.M.F.) and C.I.A. directors, played respectively by Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett, send Hunt and the dangerous assassin August Walker, played by Henry Cavill, to retrieve the lost plutonium and dismantle the Apostles at whatever means possible.

Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie are at the peak of their abilities as filmmakers. Their combined dedication to crafting a seamless and unbreakable verisimilitude of a world of spy teams and terrorists seeking world domination has only one rival, and it is George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. The action and stunt work is louder and more intricate but not necessarily unbelievable. The action sequences of the Mission: Impossible franchise is arguably as ludicrous as the action in the Fast and Furious franchise, but the latter’s overabundance of CGI trickery over the past decade has prevented the audience from seeing its characters as nothing more but indestructible cartoons. Tom Cruise and his team do escape near situations with questionable validity, but McQuarrie’s script bookends and sprinkles genuine emotions among these characters at the right time.

Henry Cavill holds his own in scenes with Cruise, and we never feel he’s trying too hard to match his co-star’s energy; Cavill’s Walker is a fun muse to Cruise’s Hunt. Walker shares similar imperfections with Hunt, and his believable inexperience with the I.M.F. assignments Hunt handles naturally escalates the stakes of each action set piece. Let us sing from every rooftop on Earth: Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the new action trailblazer to beat! The action compliments the character drama and vice versa. Admittedly the plot is typical of the spy genre in that it runs in every direction imaginable, but McQuarrie trusts the audience’s intelligence to follow and enjoy the clever misdirection we come to expect from this series.

The duo offers you impressions of not just films, but of the film makers, film festivals, new trends & other special events that many of us never get a chance to see.

What goes on at high level film summits? Which film festivals are worth going to? What type of films were each one of these festivals catering to? How did they treat the film makers & screenplay writers who were invited? Did the audiences have a blast? Was a festival a real showcase for international independent films, or just a networking party to give awards to their friends? Well, now you’ll know the answers to all these questions, and much, much more…!

AT LAST!!! After YEARS of attending other film festivals around the world (which we will still do and certainly will continue to REPORT on), we finally had the chance to create a unique & different film festival on our own, right in the heart of Texas…. check out our:Father/Daughter Film Report’s First Thursdays Film Festival – SEPTEMBER 2016:

INTERVIEW with ACADEMY AWARD WINNER CHRIS TASHIMA on #OscarsSoWhite

INTERVIEW with writer/director/actor/stuntman WALKER HAYNES:

INTERVIEW with composer/director SASHA GORDON & her film:

IT HAD TO BE YOU:

MORE TWISTED FILMS from Twister Alley 2016

JAMES CHRISTOPHER: The man behind TWITCHY DOLPHIN FLIX

INTERVIEW with Writer film & theater Actor LAURENCE FULLER

TWISTER ALLEY FILM FESTIVAL 2016 – PART I

INTERVIEW with PAIGE MORROW KIMBALL – writer & director of PLAY DATE

AUSTIN POLISH SOCIETY FILM SCREENINGS – Austin Public Library

REPORT on THE BIG AS TEXAS SHORT FILM FESTIVAL & INTERVIEW with festival director KEVIN MACHATE:

INTERVIEW with Filmmaker LEE CHEE TIAN:

INTERVIEW with Filmmaker & Twister Alley Festival Director JOSH HOPE:

Some of the BEST FILMS, TRAILERS, & MUSIC VIDEOS we saw in 2015

INTERNATIONAL FAMILY FILM FESTIVAL:

SPECIAL REPORT:

China – U.S. Film Summit:

Note: Many of the reviews above that have been already posted are also being updated, as film makers get us their trailers or those wonderful “how-we-made-the-movie” shorts that are so educational.

So check back, and important too, if YOU have input or some perspectives you think are unique over a film festival you’ve attended, you let us know, we’d love to hear your thought, opinions, and feelings as well….OK…?

Tim Wardle’s documentary is meticulously researched and thoroughly harrowing; however, I have two questions that the director bypassed.

I must begin this review by highly recommending, the provocative The Anatomy of Violence, The Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine. All the questions you have about Nature vs. Nurture are answered here. It is terrifying and an essential key to understanding this once unfathomable debate.

Nature vs. Nurture is at the heart of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS. This debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development. Does genetic traits handed down from parents influence the individual or does the environment one is raised in supplant genetics?

The film opens with Bobby Shafran telling the story of his first day at a community college in the Catskills in 1980. Everyone greets him warmly, until one student asks him if he was adopted since he looks just like a former student, Eddie Galland. They drive to meet Eddie and realize that after 19 years, they are twins. The story gets picked up by Newsday and – this was before they could become reality stars – the twins become newsworthy scene-makers. When the New York Post ran the story, a third sibling, David Kellman, recognizes himself. He organizes a reunion and their story becomes a phenomenon.

Yes, they are clearly identical, and the instant fame has them on every TV program and magazine. Being 19 years old, they begin living the life of New York celebrities.

You’ve got to cash in on “instant fame” and they do. Named they open Triplets Roumanian Steakhouse in SoHo. They make a million dollars the first year.

Wardle takes us to their families and we see how the brothers were raised. Bobby was adopted by a successful doctor; Eddie’s father was a middle-class teacher and David’s father was an immigrant store owner. As an interesting case study, the dynamics of being raised in an affluent family, a middle-class family or a blue-collar family by identical triples was unusual.

Film Image: Three Identical Strangers

The story should have ended here, but journalist and researcher Lawrence Wright was researching a book on twins and he found vague references of a psychological study that had been done on the still unresolved question: Nature vs. Nurture. Louise Wise Services had supplied the children. And thus, begins the harrowing story of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS.

All the parents of the three young men went to the offices of Louise Wise Services for answers. They were up against the powerful and influential adoption agency for Jewish children. When they realized there was something amiss, they also found no law firm would handle their case.
As the film progresses, the hidden truth of the adoptions come to the fore.

Interestingly, each boy was placed with a family that had already adopted a little girl two years earlier.

Question: Why were none of the sisters interviewed?
The adoptive parents of each boy were told that it was necessary for their son to be studied since the child had shown signs of separation anxiety in infancy. Each boy was regularly visited, tested and filmed for over a decade. They were given aptitude and behavioral tests. One of the researchers is filmed discussing his ten months working on the study. He also kept some notes on the boys. No one was ever told that their son was removed from his siblings intentionally to be studied.

Question: Why did the 3 sets of parents decide to adopt again? It clearly indicates that Louise Wise Services must have contacted them. What were they told about the child they would be adopting? There was a scientific protocol that was designed and implemented: Three different economic environments and, coincidentally, each family had already adopted a girl from Louise Wise two years earlier. The families were chosen; the families did not go looking for another child to adopt.

The evil architect behind the study was Dr. Peter Neubauer, a psychoanalyst and the director of the Child Development Center. He was a Holocaust refugee from Austria. The study has never been released. And, Neubauer gave all his papers to Yale University. His life’s work, and the Twin Study, as it was called, is sealed until 2066.

During World War II, Nazi doctors had unfettered access to human beings they could use in medical experiments in any way they chose. In one way, these experiments were just another form of mass torture and murder so our moral judgement of them is clear.

One of the many Nazi medical experiments, the hypothermia experiments, provided data on people who were immersed in ice water until they became unconscious (and many died). These savage experiments established the rate of cooling of humans in cold water and provided information about when re-warming might be successful.

But this data, and other medical experiments carried out by the Nazis, pose an uncomfortable moral challenge: what if some of the medical experiments yielded scientifically sound data that could be put to good use? Would it be justifiable to use that knowledge?

The film’s most fascinating and provocative interviewee is a colleague of Dr. Neubauer. She was not part of the study but worked in the office. She heard things. Her remarks are chilling. She takes a purely scientific, it happened, so what?, approach to the study. She (I researched and could not find her name) proposes that the study would have answered a lot of questions and possibly was a worthwhile experiment. Living in La Jolla and unabashed with regard to her famous friends, she says the study will never be replicated and the papers will never be released.

When word got out that this documentary was being made, a tiny part of the vast research at Yale, just 10,000 pages of heavily censored information, was released. Yale has a warehouse of audio tapes, film and notes yet to be released. This documentary should change that.

THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS is absolutely fascinating – and the guy sitting next to me at the sold-out screening, was furious. This is an emotionally retching documentary.

Director Antoine Fuqua and actor Denzel Washington return to the life of Robert McCall, a mysterious man who dishes out vigilante justice of his own design, in The Equalizer 2, co-starring Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, and Melissa Leo. After having found the perfect balance of living a peaceful life during the day and discreetly helping the oppressed whenever he can, Robert McCall (Washington) is forced to reconsider his priorities when demons from his questionable past resurface and hurt the people he holds most dear. Once and a while Antoine Fuqua injects The Equalizer 2 with brief moments of high octane that are infectious, but Richard Wenk’s weak screenplay is relentless on both Fuqua’s and Washington’s talents, as director and actor, with one clichéd story beat and character arc after another.

The first 15 minutes play as an effective short film of McCall’s day job as a Lyft driver and the diverse strangers who climb in and out of his car every day. With minimal dialogue from Washington and a few creative camera angles done by the film’s director of photography Oliver Wood, we understand the one thing this film’s protagonist truly desires but can never have: a normal life. Emotionally genuine scenes like this prologue are few and far between, and when the film fails to distract us with basic action, it becomes an unmanned vehicle coasting on an all-too-familiar road. All the supporting actors should be credited for committing to material not worthy of their talents. Ashton Sanders and Pedro Pascal play characters who are only defined by the information divulged in their introductions. Wenk proceeds to hit every twist and turn supporting characters like these have experienced for decades.

Hip-hop musician Boots Riley showcases his natural talents as a filmmaker with his debut feature film Sorry to Bother You, starring Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, and Jermaine Fowler. In an alternate present-day depiction of Oakland, California, Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a young man struggling to lead a life that will make some kind of a noticeable impact on the world or at the very least on his girlfriend, the politically driven artist Detroit (Thompson). However, life seems to be looking up for Cassius when he lands a telemarketing job at the shady Regal View, where he receives sage advice from co-worker Danny Glover: if you want to make some real money, use your white voice.

Boots Riley balances the intrigue of his surreal and macabre Oakland and the extraordinary relatability of his protagonist like a seasoned director. He eases the audience into the unpredictable laws of this world instead of shoving them into the deep end without life jackets. Riley understands comedy is a great crutch to lean on if you want to teach the mass public complex ideas of racial expectations, the morality of corporations, and the unionization of mistreated workers. The fantastical differences of this world from our own start small and somewhere in the background. By the end of the second act, we understand these seemingly pointless exercises in otherworldly imagery are in fact extensions of the film’s characters and their own trials and tribulations.

Lakeith Stanfield is a wonderful leading man and his Cassius Green is the universal Everyman for every generation to proudly proclaim as its champion. Stanfield and Tessa Thompson share great scenes of verbal dueling as their own respective lives start to go in different directions. Cassius’ climb up the corporate ladder raises genuine concern in his girlfriend Detroit and friends, played by Jermaine Fowler and The Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun. This turn in a familiar character arc is given a breath of complexity as Cassius notices Detroit make the same decisions in her career that would be considered acts of selling out.

A major shift occurs in the third act as Riley kicks Sorry to Bother You into 10th gear. The overall surreal and goofy nature of the film will already make serious crossroads for each audience member, but the final 30 minutes is still a whole other kind of beast. In hindsight, acts one and two serve as a somewhat gradual transition from weird to disturbing. If this film must be given negative criticism then let’s say that the twist in the third act is so jarring that what remains of Cassius’ story afterwards never reaches the same cinematic punch. Still, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You is bold and innovative. If the film’s tone and style prevent a person from enjoying it then, amidst the endless sequels and new cinematic franchises in Hollywood, let the film continue to circulate and serve as a gleaming beacon of the originality of the modern American film industry.

Professional wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Baywatch) is always a charismatic screen presence, no matter the quality of the film in which he stars. A mighty giant of a man with a smile that engages as much as his muscles ripple, he alternates vibes between imp and bruiser. In Skyscraper, a forgettable and mostly inane action thriller set in a burning Hong Kong high-rise, he mostly bruises. Paging writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber (of the far more appealing Central Intelligence): if you’re going to rip off Die Hard, try making more with the jokes, especially if your main conceit collapses under the weight of its contrivances.

After a prologue that is as disturbingly violent as it is dumb, we cut to the present, 10 years later, where Johnson’s Will Sawyer, now minus a leg and married to the surgeon, played by Neve Campbell (Walter), who patched him up, is a security consultant hired to evaluate the world’s tallest building before its top half opens to the public. Towering over the streets below, crowned by a greenhouse garden, spherical observation deck, rotating double helix that creates its own power supply, and the penthouse suite in which its developer, Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han, A Different Sun) lives as the current sole inhabitant, the structure screams out for something bad to happen to it. Sure enough, in a series of screenplay moves that play to our expectations, a group of would-be terrorists invade, trapping not only Zhao inside the subsequent inferno, but Sawyer’s wife and two kids, as well. At least they’re white terrorists (with a little local Asian help), for once, the one true novelty of the movie.

Mayhem ensues, but there’s never any doubt as to whether or not The Rock will prevail, missing leg notwithstanding. An interesting note about the prosthetic: though at times our hero walks with a noticeable limp, when the kindling flares, he can run and jump like a pro. The set pieces are adequate, but never rise to the level of excitement. Did I express a desire for humor? Well, to be fair, we do get some, mostly involving Sawyer’s miraculous use of duct tape, though other moments seem less intentional. My favorite inadvertent minute of hilarity comes when Sawyer must leap between the blades of the double helix to access a power console, placed there by Zhao, recalling a similar out-of-the-way location of a shut-off device in the satirical film Galaxy Quest. There however, the stupidity of the placement was the point; here, it’s an excuse for yet another improbable jump.

And on and on. Would that it were more entertaining. Johnson is game enough, as is Campbell, though her character is woefully underwritten and riddled with inconsistencies of competence; neither are well-served by the script. I did enjoy two of the villains, however: lead baddie Roland Møller (Land of Mine) and his off-site lieutenant Hannah Quinlivan (The Shanghai Job). They sneer and snarl, kick and kill, and have fun doing it. See it for them, and hope that Johnson next time gets a better cinematic vehicle for his copious charm.

For anyone who liked the original Ant-Man, back in 2015, and was worried that its sequel might not deliver its predecessor’s comedic goods, have no fear: Ant-Man and the Wasp, also directed by Peyton Reed (Yes Man), if muddier than the first film, still entertains with similarly droll grace. The original lead cast returns, including Paul Rudd (This Is 40), Evangeline Lilly (Real Steel), Michael Douglas (And So It Goes) and, most joyfully, Michael Peña (War on Everyone), among others, with a few welcome additions, including Randall Park (Dismissed), Hannah John-Kamen (Dutch on Syfy’s Killjoys), Laurence Fishburne (Last Flag Flying) and the seemingly ageless Michelle Pfeiffer (Mother!). Together a dynamic and witty bunch they make, and if the script (by multiple writers, as was Ant-Man‘s) does not quite achieve the delirious heights of three years ago, it’s still great fun, and a welcome reprieve from the dreariness of Marvel’s last Avengers film.

For yes, we are very much located at the heart of the Marvelverse here. As the movie begins, Scott Lang (aka, “Ant-Man,” played by Rudd) is under house arrest, having broken certain laws against superhero activities in the 2016 Captain America: Civil War. His mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas), and Pym’s daughter Hope (Lilly), are on the run, the technology they control (source of Scott’s amazing shrinking suit) also deemed illegal. Since I mostly forget the details of all these films shortly after watching them, I’m a little fuzzy on why what Scott and company did was wrong, but it makes for a convenient obstacle now, as Scott must must elude FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Park) once he gets a hankering for action. Woo is not the only one after him and the Pyms, however.

After a dream in which Scott experiences a vision of Pym’s lost wife Janet (Pfeiffer) who – as we are reminded in an opening prologue – was lost long ago in the “quantum realm” (that’s the super-micro-sub-atomic level of existence where Scott almost disappeared last time), he calls his old comrades on a hidden phone, and soon is off again, ankle bracelet conveniently left behind. Before long, he and Hope – who now wears the “Wasp” suit that her mother once used – are fighting side by side, pursued by a mysterious new character whom they call “Ghost” (John-Kamen) since she phases in and out of multiple dimensions. Her history, it turns out, is inextricably linked to theirs, and while Hope, Pym and Scott search for the missing Janet, who may be alive, Ghost proves a more formidable adversary than the FBI.

Meanwhile, Scott – a divorced father of an adorable little girl – struggles to remain free of legal troubles while he helps his pal Luis (Peña), along with their two other ex-con partners, start up a security business. As he did in Ant-Man, Peña provides the major comic relief, complete with his hilarious storytelling skills, in a movie that is already pretty funny even without his contributions. Rudd, Lilly and Douglas continue to have delightful rapport, and Park and Pfeiffer – and others – bring a charming light touch to their own roles. Only Kamen-Jones and Fishburne, as an erstwhile colleague of Pym’s, remain serious, but their characters demand it, so it works. In general, the actors and their delivery of smart dialogue – on top of some excellent action sequences – are the main reasons to watch the film.

Unfortunately, as with many science-fiction and/or comic-book films, the exposition (i.e., mumbo-jumbo, or gobbledygook) occasionally undoes the joy of the proceedings. Whether it’s the excessive use of the word “quantum” as a qualifier for any unexplainable phenomenon within the plot, or the endless backstory we eventually hear from Ghost, sometimes the writers don’t know when to quit. Though “less is more” is by now a tired adage, here it would definitely apply. Still, beyond those failings of script, Ant-Man and the Wasp is in many ways a lovely, successful work of commercial Hollywood cinema that does what it sets out to do, advancing the protagonist’s narrative while keeping the audience pleasantly diverted. I already can’t wait for the next one!

The 16th yearly edition of the AFI DOCS documentary film festival (formerly AFI SILVERDOCS) continued its excellent tradition first established in 2003 when the event was primarily anchored in Silver Spring, Maryland. Now splitting its screenings between there and the main hub in the District of Columbia, AFI DOCS this time around was able to present a total of 92 films (down from 112 in 2017) representing 22 countries (last year there were docs from 28 countries). The breakdown was as follows: 52 feature films (of these were five world premieres, seven U.S. premieres, two East Coast premieres, one North American premiere and one international premiere); 29 shorts; 11 films in the Virtual Reality Showcase which immersed viewers in VR experiences “around the world – and beyond.”

Major screening venues returned to the D.C. Penn Quarter Landmark E Street Cinema and the Silver Spring AFI Silver Theater. A special screening of Rory Kennedy’s latest, “Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow”, honoring NASA’s 60th anniversary, was shown in 4D at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s spectacular IMAX theater, which was utilized for the first time by the festival organizers.

The Newseum, in Washington, DC

AT&T was once again the Presenting Sponsor of the festival which featured the World Premiere of “Personal Statement” as the Opening Night film at the Newseum, about three Brooklyn high school students who work as college guidance support for their peers, while the Closing Night film (held for the first time at the Landmark venue) was “United Skates” about the role roller-skating plays in African-American culture.

Notable feature films: “Foster”, the latest from Oscar winners Mark Jonathan Harris and Debbie Oppenheimer (“Into The Arms of Strangers” and “Stories of the Kindertransport”); “A Murder In Mansfield” from two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple (“Harlan County, USA” from 1977 and “American Dream from 1991); “Into The Okavango” which is the directorial debut of National Geographic photographer Neil Gelinas; two Sundance Film Festival winners: “Shirkers” won the Directorial Award while “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” was honored with the Special Jury Price.

Michael Phillips and Steve James

The Guggenheim Symposium, which each year recognizes a virtuoso documentary filmmaker, welcomed Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”, “The Interrupters”, “Life Itself”, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”). It began with a retrospective of his works followed by a terrific interview moderated by Chicago Tribune film critic, Michael Phillips. The audience was then treated to the first installment of Steve James 10-hour documentary series “America To Me” which focuses on the examination of diversity at a Chicago high school. The series is set to debut this fall on the Starz cable network.

The fourth-annual AFI DOCS Impact Lab, produced by AFI DOCS and RABEN_IMPACT, included a three-day training program preceding the festival and, as stated in the festival guide, is “designed for filmmakers who aim to create change through the power of film.” Adding, “The Lab offers exclusive trainings with sought-after tacticians in the social and political sphere . . . and are connected with policymakers and Congressional aides working on legislation relevant to their films.”

Yet another festival highlight was a unique conversation between NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd and Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday asking whether a documentary is “Journalism or Art?”-or can it be both?

AFI Silver, in Silver Springs, MD

Finally, this was another tremendous 5-day festival which continues each year to successfully emphasize its importance in nonfiction filmmaking. Although the festival organizers indicated they would continue to maintain a presence in Silver Spring, unfortunately, the role of this birthplace of the fest appears to have diminished since its move to the nation’s capital in 2013. Last year there were 22 of the 112 features, or 19%, that failed to screen at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring. This year there were 21 out of 92 films, or 22%, that played only in DC. Despite this troubling trend, here’s hoping the organizers will continue to include the spectacular AFI Silver Theater in their screening venues in the future.

NOTE: The Audience Award for Best Feature went to “Mr. Soul!” directed by Melissa Haizlip and Sam Pollard about the late 1960s WNET public television series “Soul!” and its producer Ellis Haizlip who created one of the most successful black-produced TV shows in US history. The controversial series was among the first to focus on African Americans on TV shifting from inner-city poverty and violence to the enthusiasm of the Black Arts Movement. The Audience Award for Best Short went to “Earthrise” directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee about the legendary 1968 photo of the first image of Earth taken from space. (Neither film was screened by this reviewer.)

MY TOP 5 AT THE 2017 AFI DOCS

Film poster: “Pick of the Litter”

(1) Pick of the Litter (**** out of 4 – 81 Minutes)

We’ve all seen them. Attentive guide canines dutifully accompanying the disabled folks they protect and service. Ever wonder about the journey these animals take to attain this career status? Directors Don Hardy and Dana Nachman marvelously answers this question with a superb heartwarming film that also documents the plight humans undergo who are in charge of training them. A short prologue recounting the myriad of dangers impaired people face while going about their everyday lives is followed by our introduction to a newly birthed litter of five black and tan Labradors born on the nonprofit San Rafael campus of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Training begins shortly after the Labs are born as the directors meticulously depict the extensive journey where, along the way or at the conclusion, they will attain one of the three classifications that will ultimately determine their life purpose: guide dog, breeder, or career-changed. The latter designation meaning not eligible to be a part of the program, and where they are transferred to other programs or just adopted out as a domestic pet. When eight weeks old, they are paired with “puppy raiser” families or individuals, to be socialized and trained for up to sixteen months. We find that some of these foster families with problem dogs, or novice families, don’t succeed as fast as the GDB personnel would like and abruptly find a different home to continue the process. Following the initial foster care, if the pups make it that far, they begin a rigorous 10-week training and evaluation session at GDB headquarters with handlers who subject them through multiple testing scenarios – sometimes undergoing retests before their final designation. Despite GDB breeding 800 puppies a year, less than 40% are deemed suitable as guide dogs – which emphasizes the painstaking process GDB personnel and raisers face to triumphantly lead these dogs to graduation. The filmmakers wisely shift their focus back and forth from dogs to handlers, simultaneously raising the drama and emotional level each time. Filming four hours a day for 120 days makes the outstanding editing job by Hardy (who also co-wrote the script and assisted in photography) all the more remarkable as he precisely juggled multiple story lines with seemingly effortless ease. And when you add an unobtrusively perfect background score provided by British composer Helen Jane Long, you have all the ingredients for a perfect documentary. “Pick of the Litter” was bought by ITV/Sundance Selects and will be released August 31 (it will premier at the E Street Landmark in DC on September 14). One bit of advice: bring Kleenex – and lots of it.

“Pick of the Litter” directors Don Hardy (center) and Dana Nachman (far right) share a post-screening photo with audience members and their guide dogs

Film poster: “Hesburgh”

(2) Hesburgh (*** 1/2 out of 4 – 104 Minutes)

The world premiere of the latest by director Patrick Creadon (2006’s I.O.U.S.A. and 2008’s Wordplay) is a biopic that will totally satisfy with no requirement that you know any of the background of this extraordinary figure in U.S. history. Serving for 35 years (1952-1987) as the president of the University of Notre Dame, Reverend Theodore Hesburgh’s life is chronicled in such a way that, by its conclusion, will clearly illustrate why this kind inspirational gentleman is considered one of the most influential people of the 20th century. An ordained priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Hesburgh was successful in transforming and elevating UND from just an average University with an impressive football team into an institution that was much much greater and significant. His horizons expanded outside Notre Dame by serving on corporate boards while becoming confidante and adviser to four presidents (the reverend served on 16 presidential commissions), popes and even Ann Landers. A portion of the film covers his influence and importance in the Civil Rights movement when he was appointed to Eisenhower’s federal Commission on Civil Rights.

Theodore Hesburgh and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Comprised of three republicans and two democrats, the commission, with the independent Hesburgh providing guidance and common sense wisdom and persuasion, was incredibly able to produce a bi-partisan twelve point recommendation to Congress that would become the cornerstone of historical civil rights legislation eventually signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. (As Creadon pointed out in the post-screening interview, Rev. Ted throughout his career was a man, ” who could disagree without being disagreeable.”) This is just a small example of the impact Hesburgh had during his lifetime – which are way too numerous to itemize in this space. The director has added a fascinating first-person narration that will hold your interest throughout a film which also possesses a wonderful score by Notre Dame senior Alex Mansour and seamless editing by Nick Andert and William Neal. Creadon (who also did an ESPN “30 For 30” feature Catholics vs Convicts) does not just spew out historical facts; however, by using a tremendous amount of black and white archival photos, archival film and newsreels surrounding interviews with family members and clergy, he has created a fascinating human interest picture of a man the likes of which we may never see again. As of this writing, no distribution deal has yet to be firmly established.

It never ceases to amaze me that, after attending countless documentary Q&A’s over the years, how many times filmmakers start out with a specific idea and end up with something completely different and more profound than their original concept. In this case, first-time director Richard Miron set out to do a film about animal rescue so he volunteered at an animal sanctuary in Wawarsing New York while a senior at Yale. That is where he first met Kathy Murphy, gained her trust and obtained total access throughout to end up with this gem of a subject and story that was never originally intended when he began. I’m a news junkie and, on a regular basis, have seen and read of animal hoarders and the subsequent cruelty, whether intentionally or not, inflicted on their “pets”. I often wonder what the backstory was behind the sensational end-result that one only sees on the news – when the surviving animals are rescued and the owner often prosecuted. And it is this backstory that For the Birds chronicles, that began when Kathy found a single duckling on her lawn. Ten years after raising it, she has accumulated hundred of birds including hordes of chickens, ducks, geese and two turkeys which have overran, both inside (yuck!) and outside, her and her husband Gary’s house. When the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary first becomes involved, she was agreeable to relinquishing custody of some of her birds. It is only after a subsequent rescue visit, when sanctuary personnel turn their attention to her beloved turkeys, that the plot takes a sudden right turn. No spoilers will be offered here to the many surprising twists and turns accompanied by an incredible narrative arc to Kathy’s story, none of which the director could have imagined in his wildest dreams. It is no wonder that young Miron spent 6 1/2 years on this project. A number of side stories are introduced including Kathy’s colorful attorney who easily could be made the focus of his own film. Special mention goes to another Yale alum, Andrew Johnson, whose effectively discreet soundtrack permeates the visuals. During the Q&A Johnson revealed that he tried to create the score as if it was tailored for a feature film and not a documentary. His extraordinary composition made For the Birds that much more interesting and memorable. This splendid first film makes Richard Miron a definite talent to watch for in the future. The movie, which had its North American premiere at AFI DOCS, was recently purchased by Dogwoof for world sales so be on the lookout for the release.

The rise and fall of the fabled Manhattan disco-era nightclub and the story of its two colorful owners is given a lively thoroughly entertaining critique by director Matt Tyrnauer. When Studio 54 exploded on the scene like a supernova on April 26, 1977 by two young Brooklyn friends who met at Syracuse, its fame, as well as its infamy, blasted off as fast and bright as a Fourth of July firework. Unfortunately, just as quickly, Studio 54 became a footnote in club lore with its demise in 1979 after just 33 months. If you were a celebrity, it was the place to be and to be seen. It was also considered a safe haven for the LBGT community. However, if you were the everyday common folk, or if you dressed like one, you more than likely languished forever behind the velvet ropes that guarded its front door. A perfect example of the exclusivity of its selection process was the amusing anecdote given that when the four Rolling Stones wandered by, only the more famous and recognizable Jagger and Richards were allowed access. One of the joys of the film is the manner in which Tyrnauer uses a gargantuan amount of archival photos and video, along with a pulsating soundtrack, that will transport the viewer inside the club, with its lights (they hired Tony award-winning lighting designers), sets, and gliding balcony, to directly experience its grandeur and decadence without being judged outside the ropes. After the outgoing flamboyant Steve Rubell failed with a chain of steak restaurants, he and his lawyer friend, the more introverted Ian Schrager, tried their hand in the nightclub scene and opened a club in Queens with the hope of creating the perfect nightspot. When they later walked into the empty Manhattan space on the seedy W. 54th St, which was originally the 1927 built Gallo Opera House, and they witnessed the stage, balcony, and the towering ostentatious ceiling, they instantly realized the transformational possibilities.

Studio 54 in its heyday

Six weeks and hundreds of thousand of dollars later, they advertised the opening and the rest was club history. Hilariously, when they realized they lacked a liquor license, they shamelessly formed a catering company so they could apply for daily permits. The film’s description of Studio 54’s joyous hedonism (the rampant drug use, and orgies that were commonplace in the basement and later the balcony where it was eventually rubberized to make it easier to wash down) morphs into the legal troubles that beset the owners. Keeping records of their incredible skimming operation and the storage of large amounts of drugs at the club for their personal and clientele use, was uncovered when the IRS raided the establishment on a tip by a disgruntled employee. However, this incredible story didn’t end with their incarceration. Now 71, the surviving owner Schrager (Rubell succumbed to AIDS in 1989), for the first-time opens up to relate the details. Also interviewed are ex-employers (including the club’s first doorman) and even the lighting designers. Even if one never heard of Studio 54, the doc will never bore and one only has to wonder why it took nearly 40 years to have it told – a story that perfectly fits this year’s festival motto: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! A distribution deal has yet to be finalized.

(l to r) Studio 54 co-owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager

A youthful Michael Jackson with co-owner Steve Rubell

Film poster: “The Price of Everything”

(5) The Price of Everything (*** 1/2 out of 4 – 98 Minutes)

In 2004 director Nathaniel Kahn produced and directed My Architect – one of my all-time favorite documentaries. His Academy Award nominated debut film won the 2004 Directors Guild Best Documentary Award and the 2003 AFI SILVERDOCS Sterling Award for a Feature Film in this festival’s first year. As the illegitimate son of famed architect Louis Kahn, Nathaniel created a beautifully moving film of the father he never really knew. Nearly 15 years later, the long wait for his second film has been well worth it as he now tackles the nebulous world of contemporary art commodification. Although Kahn chapters the doc with a countdown to a Sotheby major contemporary art auction, the film is generally structureless as he explores the pricing, selling and valuing of art replete with fascinating interviews involving collectors, dealers, auctioneers and artists. The insane monetary escalation that works of art are bringing can be traced back to October 18, 1973 when Robert Scull sold 50 pieces of his collection at the Sotheby Park-Benet Gallery where one was bought for $135,000 – an unheard-of price at the time.

“The Price of Everything” director Nathaniel Kahn

In 1997, the same item sold for $10 million. Today it would be worth $100 million. Other eye-opening revelations include the “value” of a Jeff Koons inflatable silver rabbit estimated to be worth $65 million, currently sitting in the living room of colorful collector/philanthropist Stefan Edlis (who is featured extensively in the doc). Also, Koons’ reproduction of works by Masters such as Titian, Van Gogh and Manet with a blue glass gazing ball painted in the foreground, sell for many millions. It is this current insane commercial pricing and the ramification it is having on the artist in particular and the art world in general that the film, as Kahn pointed out in his introduction, “brings up lots of questions but doesn’t give lots of answers.” Special mention goes to the enormous talent of accomplished composer Jeff Beal who has impressively added a memorable soundtrack to Nathaniel’s visuals. The movie’s title refers to a quote by Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windemere’s Fan who joked that a cynic was, “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” A relevant description that aptly describes those involved in the shifting dynamics between artists and consumers. Kahn’s intriguing film is partnered with HBO and will eventually make it to the cable network in November after a theatrical release scheduled for mid-October.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Hal (*** 1/2 out of 4 – 90 Minutes) – Hal Ashby was one of the most significant figures of the motion picture industry of the last 50 years and is given a wonderful tribute by director Amy Scott who explores the rise and fall of one of the New Hollywood Cinema’s finest directors. Leaving his hometown of Ogden Utah after a tumultuous childhood, he landed in California starting out in Hollywood as a film editor for Norman Jewison (Ashby actually won an Oscar for editing In the Heat of the Night). He then went on to direct seven of the most memorable films of the 1970’s: The Landlord,Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There. Unfortunately, it was all down hill from there – ending in his way too early demise in 1988 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 58. The last reel speculates on some of the reasons for his downward career trend, which could have been attributed to his hippie/druggie lifestyle, his obsessive perfectionism and/or the actions of the Hollywood suits who tried to take control over his projects which effectively limited his creative talents and artistic vision. The fascinating biopic, which premiered at Sundance, is currently making the festival circuit and no distribution deal has been struck as of this writing.

Love, Gilda (*** 1/2 out of 4 – 84 Minutes) – The brilliant career of Gilda Radner, one of the original Saturday Night Live Not Ready For Prime Time Players, cut tragically short by ovarian cancer, is given a hilarious and poignant treatment that should please everyone besides her ardent fans. Lisa D’Apolito’s directorial debut (her previous credit was as the character of Lisa in Good Fellas) does an admirable job piecing together the history of the comedian with home movies detailing her early life growing up in Detroit, her participation in Toronto’s Second City and National Lampoon, her meteoric rise to fame with SNL, her one-woman show on Broadway, and her short-lived film career during which she met and married Gene Wilder who was with her until her death at the young age of 42. D’Apolito includes touching readings from Radner’s notebooks by her contemporaries from the memoir released the year she died, where she touches on her struggles with health (including an eating disorder and depression), relationships, and fame. Besides the heartfelt interviews by those who knew her and/or were influenced by her work, is the unique narration provided by Gilda herself from audiotape excerpts she created the last year of her life. Interviews with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin are curiously absent from the film, and, at a brisk 84 minutes, additional footage from her glorious SNL years could have easily made the cut without disrupting the flow. Despite that, Love, Gilda assuredly will have many patrons clicking on YouTube to revisit the memorable characters and moments brought to life by one of the more enduring and courageous entertainers of our time. A limited theatrical release is scheduled for September 21.

Acclaimed screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water) returns to the harsh and amoral border wars of the United States and Mexico in the second chapter of his Sicario saga, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (or “Sicario 2”). Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro return as U.S. special task force agent Matt Graver and the mysterious gunman-for-hire Alejandro. After a series of terrorist bombings occur on U.S. soil, the Department of Defense discovers evidence that places the Mexican cartels at the very heart of these bombings. Convinced the cartels need to be taken down before things escalate even further, the Defense Department seeks the help of Agent Graver and Alejandro and asks them to do whatever it takes to start a major war between the rival organizations.

Sicario 2 offers just enough meaty material for Brolin and Del Toro to chew on and a couple exciting shootouts on the U.S.-Mexican border to tie the audience over, but it’s evident Sheridan isn’t entirely sure of the direction he wants to take the second installment of a story that didn’t need to be continued. Plot threads begin and end at misplaced marks of the story. Each one carries an interesting and extremely relevant topic regarding the stupidly complex relationship between America and Mexico, but the ball is dropped every single time. There’s barely enough of a recognizable arc for any character and the vital plot information that is available—information that would help this film stand on its own—is scarce at best. One hour into the film and you begin to realize this story isn’t going to amount to much except a mediocre “passing of the baton” to the third act of this crime saga. Hopefully it can deliver the closure this film happily chucked over the border.

A saving grace of the movie is Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro and the remarkably effective aura of mystery that surrounds this dangerous man. We still find out very little of Alejandro’s backstory but what we do learn, along with Del Toro’s greatly restrained performance, is all we need to follow this character anywhere. In the final minutes of the film, the presence of Alejandro in the frame is reminiscent of the Devil, always keeping in the shadows and always ready to claim the next damned soul. Sicario: Day of the Soldado is Taylor Sheridan’s loud and stylish devotion to Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro and nothing else. If it weren’t for Del Toro’s hypnotizing performance then the film would go down as the first afterthought of Sheridan’s impressive career as one of Hollywood’s premier storytellers.

From Elaine McMillion Sheldon, who just last year gave us the Oscar-nominated Netflix-released short documentary Heroin(e), about the opioid epidemic ravaging West Virginia (and much of the rest of the country), comes a new film, Recovery Boys – a feature, also on Netflix – about the same subject, but with a very different story and characters. Where her previous movie focused on three women at the heart of treatment efforts, this new offering points its lens at four male residents of an addiction center, struggling to rebuild their lives. Theirs is not an easy journey, and we are with them all the way in a cinematic proximity that develops into raw emotional intimacy by the end. The stakes are real; choices made lead to life or death. Forget our society’s current obsession with superheroes: this is the conflict of which powerful drama is made.

We are in the brand-new Jacob’s Ladder treatment center, in Aurora, located on a farm in the eastern part of the state, near Maryland. Our protagonists are Jeff, Rush, Adam and Ryan, each with a unique backstory that has led to the same outcome: addiction and trouble. Jeff comes straight from jail; Rush from another program; Adam from home; and Ryan from the street. As they do daily chores, working with animals and crops under the gentle guidance of the center’s founder and director, Dr. Kevin Blankenship, they lose pallor and gain vigor and muscle, gathering confidence as they go, as well. The routine, combined with group sharing sessions, seems to do the trick. Six months later, they graduate. Bravo. Life can begin again!

Not so fast. No matter the evident resources at this well-apportioned rural facility, getting over addiction is harder than merely avoiding drugs for half a year. Even the most committed soul finds that, once out on his own again, the same enablers and temptations resurface, potentially leading one down a dangerously well-traveled path. We watch, over the course of 18 months, as our four friends confront the harsh realities of post-Jacob’s Ladder life in vastly differing ways. It comes as a surprise (at least to me) who makes it and who doesn’t. One constant seems true: if you can find a community of like-minded sober individuals to support you in your recovery, then you have a better chance to remain sober, yourself. Isolation, fueled by guilt and resentment, is the great enemy of recovery. Like 12-Step Programs or not, but this is their guiding principle. Live in the company of others, or die alone.

Sheldon delivers a compelling, unscripted narrative, in which we never know what lies ahead. She leaves some questions unanswered, however, such as who funds a place like Jacob’s Ladder, which seems to offer services unavailable elsewhere (however effective, or not, they may be), or how race affects such funding (West Virginia, at least as presented here, is extremely white), or why AA and NA seem to factor so little in these addicts’ treatment plan (at least at first), but these unexamined details in no way diminish the power of the on-screen conflict. Indeed, that conflict is so terrifying to watch because it rages within each character: seeing no actual demons, we can only imagine how they manifest themselves to those fighting them off. Recovery Boys, then, whatever its limitations of perspective, offers a heart-rending exploration of one side of our nation’s growing opioid crisis, rendered in great specificity, and as such is necessary viewing for all who care about this devastating plague.

A beautifully shot, acted and designed film that nevertheless falls far short of early promise, Hereditary, the debut feature from writer/director Ari Aster, offers a plethora of impressive visuals that ultimately amount to less than the sum of their spooky parts. In the central role of Annie, a woman both daughter and frazzled matriarch, Toni Colette (Glassland) delivers a brilliant performance that (almost) carries the movie over its more nonsensical passages. She’s given solid support by Gabriel Byrne (Lies We Tell), Ann Dowd (Hedgehog), Milly Shapiro (making her screen debut), and Alex Wolff (Patriots Day), the ensemble coming together as one in eerie unity. Unfortunately, their impressive commitment is not enough to overcome the deficiencies of script.

As the film begins, Annie and her clan are burying grandma, dead after a slow decline in which neither she nor her daughter appear to have reconciled after years at odds, though they shared a house. Annie is an artist who makes miniatures, and one of the best mise-en-scène choices of the movie is how Aster returns, time and again, to these models as harbingers of terror; they are in fact, the very first images we see, leading through a plan of the home as its inhabitants prepare for the funeral. The dead safely put away, Mom, Dad (Byrne), son Peter (Wolff) and daughter Charlie (Shapiro) go about the business of living. Not so easy, not so fast, as Charlie – a girl with some kind of behavioral disorder – is haunted by the one no longer there, both figuratively and, perhaps, literally. Something wicked this way lingers, as Annie may be seeing things, too.

Just as the ghost is making its presence known, the movie takes a turn for the unfamiliar (all to the good) and repellant (less so). A road accident – complete with close-up of the results – upends the narrative, and before long madness and mayhem creep into every corner of the story. With the arrival of a new friend (Dowd) for Annie – made at a 12-step group for fellow grief-sufferers – who may not be what she seems, the insanity builds even more. For a good while, I loved Aster’s control of tone and pacing, until the atmosphere outpaced the screenplay and I stopped caring. Some of the seeds of my discontent were sown by that accident, deeply unpleasant as it is, but also by later plot threads so tangled in the weaving of the master tapestry that the result is a frayed mess. Still, my disappointment would be less bitter if the first half weren’t so strong, and I commend Aster for the effort, especially his direction of actors, all of whom shine. May his next film inherit the best of Hereditary‘s DNA and discard the rest.

The waterboarding scene was hilarious! Five guys and they ignore the presence of a beautiful woman from the Wall Street Journal.

After seeing TAG I decided to write a screenplay about how I auditioned my 7th grade classmates to be my partner in a double-dutch jump roping competition. It has villains. It’s like packing a parachute – sometimes the rope is too short or too long. It has sabotage and the prettiest girl is not a background player.

In 2013, the hallowed Wall Street Journal actually featured on its cover an article about a group of guys who have been playing a game of Tag for 30 years. Every May, someone is “tagged” as “it” for the next 11 months. Oh, the horror!

Screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen thought this was a fantastic story just aching to be a top-lined movie! Jeff Tjomsic chose this for his first foray into directing a feature. How could this possibly miss? It has roles for 5 male stars, 2 female roles as wives, 1 former hot girlfriend, 1 bride and one beautiful reporter that no one notices.

Film Image: TAG

This group pf guys are veterinarian “Hoagie” Malloy (Ed Helms), billionaire executive Bob “Callahan” (Jon Hamm), recently divorced, stay at home “Chilli” Cilliano (Jake Johnson) and philosophical Kevin “Sable” (Hannibal Buress). Each man has never defeated fitness maniac “Jerry” Pierce (Jeremy Renner) who has never been tagged.
Bravo! One of my two most favorite comedians, Sebastian Maniscalco, turns up as the wedding pastor. Maniscalco stands alongside the dangerous, utterly astonishing Anthony Jeselnik. Bill Burr has a Hitler piece that is a must. I watch these 3 guys over and over again on Netflix. Jeselnik, when are you coming to Las Vegas?

TAG begins with a gorgeous reporter from the Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis), interviewing billionaire Callahan. The interview is interrupted by a disguised Hoagie. The game is on.

Film Image: TAG

Rebecca must be married to a hedge fund scion since she rarely gives Callahan an appreciative glance. Unlike other interviewers – notably biographer Paula Broadwell (Gen. David Petraeus), reporter Lois Lane (Superman), interviewer Suzy Wetlaufer (Jack Welch) and the notorious “videographer” Rielle Hunter (John Edwards) – she is not impressed with his good looks, suits or money.

Rebecca “tags” along and meets the gang. None of these guys even nod at her. Remember Amy Adams in AMERICAN HUSTLE? All her clothes plunged to her waist but not one male character in the film ever looked at her chest. Same thing with Rebecca. Most of the time she is in the background.

Jerry has picked the last weekend in May to get married to way-over-the-top wide-mouthed, Susan (Leslie Bibb). Susan wants to call a truce on the game so her wedding can take place peacefully. Susan looks like someone who is going to jump off a high building – she’s got that hysterical laugh of a possessed cloistered nun.

Film Image: TAG

So, since the 4 have not been invited to Jerry’s wedding, an insult to their 30-year friendship – they decide to unite and go to the wedding. They plan to tag him. Along goes Hoage’s firebrand wife, Anna (Isla Fisher). The game is temporarily halted with the arrival of everyone’s high school untouchable girlfriend, Cheryl (Rashida Jones). Neither Anna, Cheryl or Susan notice Rebecca.

There is no villain and no one to cheer. The woeful writing tries to give Bibb something to do but it – like the waterboarding scene – falls with a thud.

No one looks good. I know Hamm cannot play Don Draper for his entire career, but he is a handsome man – when they want him to be. His appearance does not telegraph “billionaire”. Helms and all the other guys show their age in rather unflattering ways. Jones looks like she has the flu and no one bothered to do her hair.

Sensational. Buckley and Flynn are sensational. Skip the comic book movies and see BEAST. This film stays with you.

Imdb.com logline for BEAST: A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.

The success of BEAST would fall on who was chosen to play “outsider” Pascal Renouf. The actor cast must have varying degrees of menace, charm, sexual charisma, kindness, brutality and interesting – even if he is the killer. Pascal must be believable as someone who would liberate the sexually-repressed young woman from her cruel mother.

I keenly anticipated this stranger making his first appearance.

Praise should go to whoever banked on the first feature film of writer-director Michael Pearce. BEAST is sensational. Pearce is going to be in demand by Hollywood actresses. Yes, the star, newcomer to movies, Jessie Buckley, is thrilling and magnetic, but it is Pearce who is enraptured by her interpretation of his creation. The character of Moll is his muse. Moll is an unforgettable, first class “femme fatale with problems.”

Pascal is Michael Pearce’s highly original creation and Johnny Flynn is electric. Flynn has every emotion finely calibrated

BEAST is suggestive of two crimes that made headlines in Britain. For more than a decade beginning in 1960, the island of Jersey, off the British south coast, was the hunting ground for a serial rapist who raped women and children in their own homes. The press named him the Beast of Jersey and in 2002 two 10-year-olds were found murdered. The killer’s girlfriend repeatedly provided an alibi for him.

Moll is probably bi-polar. She would be a dangerous friend to rely on. Moll’s stitched-up mother has been beating down a rage for decades. Pearce cleverly sets up the frame of the story. Moll, who works as a guide on a tour bus, is a member of her church’s choir. She is the only person who is criticized by the stern choir director. Later it is revealed that the choir director is Moll’s mother, Hilary (Geraldine James). Moll lives with her mother, father, and younger sister.

At Moll’s birthday party, older sister Polly (Shannon Tarbet), takes the spotlight announcing she is having twins with her – by Hilary’s standards – “appropriate” husband. Moll makes a brilliant toast and leaves the party.

After dancing and flirting with some guy, Moll leaves with him. Outside, the guy’s sexual assault is stopped by a stranger. Moll, knowing full well there is a stranger in town killing girls, agrees to take a walk with him.

Film Image: BEAST

Moll has disappointed her mother and the community in general by her behavior in elementary school. She knifed a girl who she said was bullying her.

Of course, the police begin looking at new-in-town Pascal. He’s not a churchgoer and kills rabbits for his food. But in numerous interviews with police, Moll insists she spent the entire evening dancing with Pascal at the nightclub when a girl was murdered. Pascal did not ask Moll to provide an alibi for him. So, does Moll think he’s the killer or is she just trying to protect her boyfriend from being railroaded into being charged with the killings?

Here is where Pearce plays cat-and-mouse with the audience. When Pascal casually slips up and lies to Moll, we and Moll, know he might be the killer. He’s hiding something.

But then again, so is Moll.

With Moll’s alibi firmly in place, Pascal is released. In an impassioned plea, Moll asks Pascal for the truth. We believe her sincerity and so does Pascal.

The ending is satisfying and brilliantly staged. Michael Pearce delivers a brilliant, sadist tale. Buckley and Flynn are dazzling. I believed these two were in lust with each other. Pearce stages Buckley like Arthur Penn presented Faye Dunaway in BONNIE AND CLYDE. Moll might be a liar, but she is fascinating. Pearce sees that Buckley can express various inner emotions of lust, rage, passion, anger and desperation without words. Her face tells us everything we need to know.

Flynn embodies every fantasy of a dark stranger with an edge of danger. He is often so easy-going and ordinary, that you are lulled into believing he is genuinely being scapegoated.

As I did last year, for the 2017 AFI DOCS festival, I here present my overview coverage* of AFI DOCS 2018, which ran June 13-17 in our nation’s capital. Once again, the American Film Institute (AFI) presented a massive showcase of documentaries from around the globe – this time, 92 films from 22 countries, to be exact – and though I was only able to catch a fraction of them, I was impressed by the quality of most of what I saw. If only one had no limits on time …

Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO

As the AFI’s website states, the institute “was founded in 1967 as a national arts organization to train filmmakers and preserve America’s vanishing film heritage.” AFI DOCS proclaims, on its own site, that it is “the only film festival in the United States that offers the unique opportunity to connect film audiences with national opinion leaders, filmmakers and intriguing film subjects.” Founded in 2003 as Silverdocs, the festival rebranded itself in 2013 as AFI DOCS. 15 years after its initial start-up, it is very much still going strong. As a result, it has been hard to whittle down my favorites to a mere top five, so I am cheating with a top six … scratch that, a top seven … and could do more than that (I also liked my runners-up a lot).

George Stevens, Jr., AFI Founding Director

As per the usual, films were screened in Silver Springs (at the AFI Silver Theatre) and in adjacent Washington, DC (mostly at the Landmark E Street Cinema, but at other venues about town, as well). This time, I stuck to DC, though I have nothing against the Silver (in fact, I like it a lot). All told, I saw 16 new films, and had previously seen 4 at other festivals, for a total of 20. For once, I have only included among my favorites those that I saw for the first time at AFI DOCS, even if I equally loved the films from earlier festivals (I note those movies after the main list).

I did not attend this year’s Guggenheim Symposium, whose honoree, Steve James, I nevertheless interviewed for my documentary-themed podcast The Fog of Truth (stay tuned for the release of an episode devoted to him and his work). I did, however, watch some of the VR (virtual reality) films, since I try to keep track of developments in this new moving-image medium, and interviewed Laura Wexler (who, in the interest of full disclosure is my neighbor in Baltimore), the co-writer of one of them, entitled Dinner Party. For a capsule review of that project, check out my overview of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where I first saw it. Though I interviewed her for my podcast, I’ll lead off my coverage of AFI DOCS 2018 with a very brief excerpt from that interview, before getting to my top five (no wait, top six! … no wait … top seven!).

VR: Excerpt from Laura Wexler Interview

To start, here is a shorter version of my Tribeca review.

Dinner Party, directed by Angel Manuel Soto and written by Charlotte Stoudt and Laura Wexler, is a work of docudrama (“docu,” that is, provided one believes in the truth of the source material). We start above a conventional early 1960s house, surrounded by a spectral shimmer, then settle into the living room/dining room combo as a sweet married couple attend to their four guests. Suddenly, a broken dish and the sounds from an LP on the record player lead to a disturbing flashback where our hosts, Betty and Barney Hill, recall what they claim was an alien abduction. Truth, fanciful imaginings or the manifestation of outright psychosis, Dinner Party is pure virtual cinema, immersing us completely in the terror of the unknown.

Film Festival Today: Laura, how did you come across the source material for your story, and what made you want to do it as VR, rather than as a traditional film?

Laura Wexler: So, the way my writing partner and I learned about the Betty and Barney Hill case, which is what Dinner Party is based on, was in doing research into potential real-life psychiatric cases for a TV pilot we wrote. The pilot was based on the true story of a Johns Hopkins experiment in the 1960s to convert housewives into therapists. We went down various rabbit holes researching potential psychiatric cases that could present at the housewives’ clinic. And, as often happens, that was bought and never made, so we sort of plundered the wreckage of our own piece to see what could have another life. At the same time, we were both getting interested in VR and we started thinking about what pieces would be good for VR, and also what would be the way to tell Betty and Barney’s story. Those two questions kind of came together. What is more native to VR than an alien abduction? It’s immersive, it’s individual, it’s ineffable: all these things that VR is, and so for us this was a perfect story to tell in VR.

A film that starts small and ends with a powerful, cathartic bang, 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris, 10ème – The Neighbors, from French filmmaker Ruth Zylberman (La force des femmes), gathers dramatic weight with each successive stratum of detail layered on top of its carefully prepared historical foundation. Zylberman follows the fraught life journeys of 1930s Jewish inhabitants of a residential building in Paris, pursuing all possible leads to discover who ended up where and when, from those who died in concentration camps to those still alive today. It’s a story all the more effective for the time it takes to build its narrative, catching viewers almost unawares as it propels them towards its profound conclusion. Zylberman’s goal is to evoke the time and place before tragedy struck – in the form of the German invasion of the French capital – destroying that on which she has based her careful reconstructions. Remembrance is the key to undoing the horrors of genocide. Honor the dead by shining a light on even the most quotidian aspects of their lives. Fortunately, it’s not all bleak, as we end with a reunion, at the titular address, of survivors and descendants. A bittersweet conclusion, perhaps, but with emphasis more on the sweet side.

“América” directors Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside

América (Erick Stoll/Chase Whiteside, 2018) [the paragraph, below, is an adaptation of a longer review I wrote for Hammer to Nail, which has yet to post, as of this writing]

Film poster: “América”

What would you do if your 93-year-old grandmother needed help, unable to care for herself? Would you abandon her, institutionalize her, pay for home care? In América, the debut documentary feature from co-directors Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside, we find out what three brothers in Colima, Mexico, do when confronted with this particular challenge. After their father – himself a senior citizen – is arrested for elder abuse, having allowed his mother to lie in her own filth, neglected, they drop whatever they are doing, move back home and collectively minister to their abuela, the titular América. Though they make mistakes, and one could easily find fault with some of their methods, they are a (mostly) shining example of the better instincts of the human animal, and this film is a loving tribute to them and to the woman they love. This is impressive filmmaking, exhaustively observational in its approach and emotionally bracing in its intensity.

In a world as riven by military and political conflicts as ever, it can be easy – if we, ourselves, are far from the fray – to read headlines and focus on the primary actors of these real-life dramas, forgetting about the ordinary folks stuck dealing with the consequences. They become mere abstractions in the fog of war. Fortunately, Danish director Simon Lereng Wilmont (Traveling with Mr. T), with his new documentary The Distant Barking of Dogs, trains his lens squarely on one family, living just a mile from the frontline of a major ongoing skirmish – the Russian invasion of Ukraine – reminding us of the very human cost behind national disputes. Filled with beautiful shots of nature, animals and people, all in opposition to the struggle for survival, the film serves as a clarion call to the rest of us to not ignore this particular tragedy. Hard as the reality may be to face, Wilmont’s gentle presentation of the details of the story make his movie easy to watch, if also profoundly sad. And watch it we must, as a reminder of what is lost when armies clash. The penultimate scene, of a grandmother and grandson, sitting side by side, framed by a sunset, evokes an idyll that is no more. Dogs bark, guns fire, people suffer. Such is the human condition.

Director Richard Miron’s new documentary For the Birds starts with an archival video – captured 10 years before the movie’s main action begins – of married couple Kathy and Gary Murphy playing with a rescued duckling. It’s a cute bird, and Kathy, especially, seems quite taken with it. Flash forward to the post-prologue now, and the Murphys are overrun with avian pets of all kinds: (more) ducks, geese, chickens, roosters and turkeys. Kathy Murphy is a hoarder, you see; a bird hoarder, to be exact, something that the animal sanctuary in Wawarsing, New York – where the Murphys live – has never seen before. Unfortunately, while her love for her charges is obvious, she is unable to offer them the proper care they need to be healthy, and when someone calls in the SPCA, that organization begins a rescue operation that provokes a conflict not just between Kathy and her local community, but between wife and husband, as well. Set to a soundtrack of clucks, gobbles, honks, quacks and cock-a-doodle-doos (a lot of cock-a-doodle-doos), For the Birds succeeds brilliantly in spreading our sympathies across all parties and perspectives, dividing our loyalties up to the very end. This is observational cinema at its very best.

A penetrating, complex exploration of friendship, compassion, personal growth and the lack thereof, as well as of the therapeutic power of – and here’s the kicker – skateboarding as a salve for what ails the dispossessed and disaffected, Minding the Gap marks an auspicious debut for director Bing Liu. The documentary follows three young men – one of them Liu, who also shot the footage, past and present – from childhood to twentysomething maturity as they navigate both challenges and opportunities. Beyond Liu – let’s call him by his first name from now on, since he’s also a subject – there’s also Keire and Zack. Together, they make a trio that is both racially diverse (Bing is Asian-American, Keire is African-American and Zack is white) and diverse in behavior and outcomes. They’re all terrific skaters, however, and one of the great joys of the movie is watching them on their boards, masters of their craft. It’s like a combination of Stacy Peralta’s Dogtown and Z-Boys and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, while also uniquely its own marvelous thing.

Film poster: “Tre Maison Dasan”

Tre Maison Dasan (Denali Tiller, 2018) [the paragraph, below, is an adaptation of a longer review I wrote for Hammer to Nail, which has yet to post, as of this writing]

From first-time documentary-feature director Denali Tiller comes a heart-rending portrait of three boys whose parents, when the film begins, are all incarcerated. Aged 13 (Tre), 11 (Maison) and 6 (Dasan), they come from different-enough backgrounds – and are, themselves, quite distinct the one from the other – that their outcomes, by the end, are far apart, but the similarity in starting points makes for a fascinating and deeply touching cinematic journey. Jail time affects not only those imprisoned, but also their family members, especially children, and whatever the initial crime that led to conviction, innocent people pay the price, as well. It’s a remarkable film, powerful in its emotional content and profound in its criticism of a system that sets the next generation up for failure. Nonfiction filmmaking doesn’t get much better than this.

Film poster: “Yours in Sisterhood”

Yours in Sisterhood (Irene Lusztig, 2018) [the paragraph, below, is an adaptation of a longer review I wrote for Hammer to Nail, which has yet to post, as of this writing]

From director Irene Lusztig (The Motherhood Archives) comes a vibrant new documentary, Yours in Sisterhood, about the early days of Ms. Magazine, the pioneering feminist publication founded in 1971 by Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Actually, it’s about a lot more than that, but takes as its departure point some of the many unpublished letters to the editor written during the magazine’s first decade, using them to examine America’s fraught relationship to women’s rights at that time (when has that relationship not been fraught?). This was the period of second-wave feminism, and Ms. spoke to a lot of women struggling to find their agency as independent individuals. As such, the movie is a powerful exploration of female empowerment in our society, using the past to meditate on our present.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the kind of mindless summer blockbuster-wannabe that rewards only the most basic of our adrenal needs. If one thinks about the plot for more than a few seconds, it not only makes little sense, but enrages, so incoherent are its details and developments. Sure, there are dinosaurs – some cute, some scary – which is probably what you came for, but what good are visual effects in service of a poorly conceived narrative? I was no great fan of the 2015 Jurassic World, but by comparison that film was a masterpiece. Still, as stupid as this new entry in the franchise may be, it is not completely devoid of entertainment value, thanks to a few nicely rendered sequences and the occasionally evocative digital performance from our Mesozoic friends.

As you may recall (or not), in that previous movie we witnessed the destruction of the rebooted dinosaur park, brought down, as was the first one, by hubris and greed. A combination of improved technology and demand for bigger and badder monsters led the park’s investors to develop a brand-new creature: the Indominus Rex. Not surprisingly, all hell broke loose and many people died, ripped to shreds. Surprisingly, I didn’t care, finding myself rooting for the animals, instead. Some of these reluctant heroes were trained Velociraptors, those fearsome predators which were the effective villains of the very first (and only good) Jurassic Park film, made now over a quarter-century ago, in the distant past of 1993. That switched audience allegiance (at least on my part) was, I admit, a nice twist, intentional or not. If you want me to like the humans, though, you had better write a solid script.

Which hasn’t happened here. We meet some of the survivors of the 2015 movie – most notably, Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire and Chris Pratt’s Owen – dispatched back to the Costa Rican island of Isla Nubar to transport remaining specimens of dinosaurs to a safe new park before the once-dormant volcano blows. Why is the volcano suddenly active? Because it behooved the screenwriters to make it so. And on and on it goes. The reasons why this person betrays that person, or does this or that, matter far less than the attendant mayhem such behaviors unleash. Neither director J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls) nor co-writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow (who collaborated on the 2015 movie, with Trevorrow directing) seem to have much ability to craft meaningful cause and effect, mitigating whatever pleasure we might take from the on-screen action.

That is not say that none of it is fun or occasionally affecting. Watching Owen reunite with the Velociraptor he raised is sweet, and watching a Brontosaurus vanish in a cloud of lava and ash is sad; check the box for successful manipulation of audience emotions. There are also a few new characters – including a badass vet played by Daniella Pineda (Mr. Roosevelt) and a hysterical (both in terms of comic relief and his constantly frayed nerves) computer hacker played by Justice Smith (Every Day) – who add some fresh energy to the mix, but they later disappear as the film focuses, instead, on teeth entering flesh. Focus, actually, is the wrong word, since there is little of it. Not even the brief appearance of the delightful Jeff Goldblum, reprising his role from the original series, can sharpen the blur.

The story, such as it is, revolves around yet another scheme to monetize the genetic science of dinosaur breeding – forget Indominus Rex, we’ll do you one better! – with international arms dealers hoping to use the technology to create unstoppable living weapons. What could go wrong? While we can easily anticipate how that might turn out, what actually does amaze is the staggering imbecility of the main characters, whose choices at the end unleash such horrors on an unsuspecting world (all in the service of the next film), that they take the prize, next to the protagonists of the recent Avengers: Infinity War, for worst consequences of noble-minded deeds. Go team T-Rex! Who needs humans, anyway? Dumb, thy name is Jurassic.

]]>http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/film-reviews/film-review-the-lost-treasures-of-jurassic-world-fallen-kingdom-will-not-soon-be-found/feed0Father/Daughter Film Report’s FIRST THURSDAYS FILM FESTIVAL Selection: CARDBOARD CADEThttp://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/featured-specialty/father-daughter-film-reports-first-thursdays-film-festival-selection-cardboard-cadet
http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/featured-specialty/father-daughter-film-reports-first-thursdays-film-festival-selection-cardboard-cadet#respondWed, 20 Jun 2018 00:48:36 +0000http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/?p=13159Continue reading →]]>Hello…! We are David & Amanda, also known as the Father/Daughter Film Report & would like to share with you some of the best films seen and screenplays read from all the film festivals we have covered, the submissions we have received & those “accidentally” found…

We saw this at the TWISTER ALLEY Film Festival in Woodward, OK and at the DEAD CENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City where the film maker – Chris Castor – was on the DRONE PANEL with other esteemed Drone Film masters (more on that in a future report).

CLICK on the image below to see an excellent story of a dream we are sure most every kid has and that made our Official Selection in our FIRST THURSDAY’S FILM FESTIVAL:

14 years ago – 2 years before it was bought up by Walt Disney – Pixar released The Incredibles, a mostly enjoyable and clever animated superhero family dramedy about a world in which people with special abilities have to hide their powers, lest the less genetically talented folks out in the world get nervous about who is minding the minders. In that universe, Mr. Incredible (strong beyond measure) had married Elastigirl (flexible beyond belief), just as their kind were forced underground, and – as the villain of that first film yelled with glee – “gotten busy” (in the biblical sense), birthing two children who, it turned out, were similarly gifted, albeit in their own particular ways. They had a third child, as well, but he was just a baby, with no signs of anything out of the ordinary … or so they thought.

Now, we have the sequel, Incredibles 2 (preliminary article no longer needed), and the gang is back, including family friend Frozone (who shoots limitless ice flows from his hands) and yes, Jack-Jack (that baby) who, though cute as a button, may not be so normal, after all (though we knew that already from certain scenes in the first film). Like its predecessor, the film is a similarly entertaining treat, filled with fine digital images, well-realized action sequences, and plenty of good humor. Unlike the original, however, it is blissfully free of any neo-Nietzchean promotion of genetic superiority at all costs. Though I had a good-enough time watching The Incredibles, I was deeply annoyed not only that its primary message seemed to be that “if everybody is special, then no one is,” but also that it ignored cerebral genius as an equal call to greatness. The bad guy was mercilessly mocked for being tiny and merely smart, rather than strong. Got genes? You’re in! Not? Scram.

Instead, writer/director Brad Bird – who helmed #1 – turns his attention to the far more compelling narrative of how superheroes can win over the confidence of a public genuinely frightened of what they might do to them. The story revolves around a scheme by billionaire media tycoon Winston Deavor (voiced by Bob Odenkirk, AMC’s Better Call Saul) and sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener, Get Out). They think they’ve found a way to convince politicians to overturn the laws banning superheroes. For their plan to work, they’ll need Elastigirl (Mr. Incredible is just too messy and scary), creating a nice twist on the plot of the first film, where it was the husband who got to go out and play while Mom stayed home and took care of the kids. Now it’s Dad’s turn to parent. He’s not happy about it, but understands that he has no choice. Fortunately, Elastigirl rises to the challenges put to her, and a few daring rescues later, it looks like the world is poised to reconsider the prohibition on “supers” (as they are called). Not so fast: this being a Disney-Pixar affair, with their mastery of innovative takes on traditional three-act structure, we know there’s a dramatic reversal somewhere ahead.

Meanwhile, Mr. Incredible struggles to manage daughter Violet’s nascent romantic life, son Dash’s math homework, and Jack-Jack’s increasingly manic display of an incredible variety of supernatural talents (which manifest themselves in a hilarious tussle with a tough little raccoon). Fear not, fans of the first film’s most eccentric character: Edna (voiced by the director, himself), costume designer and brilliant technician extraordinaire, shows up to offer timely aid, keeping Dad from completely losing his mind (or losing Jack-Jack). Domestic problems finally under control, it’s time for the Incredibles family to gather as one to save the world again. For, you guessed it, the Deavors’ plan hits a few snags.

Most of the lead actors from the original movie are back: Eli Fucile as Jack-Jack, Holly Hunter (The Big Sick) as Elastigirl, Samuel L. Jackson (Kong: Skull Island) as Frozone, Craig T. Nelson (Book Club) as Mr. Incredible, and Sarah Vowell as Violet; Huck Milner (making his debut) joins the cast as Dash. All are in fine form. The film more than delivers on the promise of its premise, even if never quite as original as the best of Pixar (such as Finding Nemo, Inside Out, Monsters, Inc.,Toy Story– and its own marvelous sequels – Upor Wall•E), providing a rollicking good time for all ages.

Tag is based on a real-life game of tag played by close friends for 23 years. Director Jeff Tomsic and his troupe of able-bodied comedians take this seemingly unbelievable story and craft a touching tale of longtime friendships.

Every year in the month of May, Hoagie (Ed Helms) and his close friends, played by Jake Johnson, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, and Hannibal Buress, take time off from their humdrum lives to play the same game of tag they played when they were kids. Hoagie tries convincing his friends, and in part himself, that this year will be the year they finally tag their friend Jerry, played by Renner, the reigning champion. Hoagie’s friends reluctantly change their minds when he tells them Jerry will be getting married and the wedding will be the perfect event to corner him and finally tag him.

Tag is a comedy that rises above its expected but still-funny low-brow humor and instead promotes the heartwarming bond between these five friends. The interpersonal drama between the main characters, and the banter that follows, is never mean-spirited to the point of a disconnect with the audience but sarcastic enough to build a believable rapport among these men.

The camerawork and editing are wildly creative and energetic. The tag sequences become more outlandish and incredibly entertaining as these friends’ dedication to beat the greatest tag player of all time becomes downright volatile. The high-octane buffoonery and character drama aren’t distractingly broken into identifiable sections. They work together as a sort of close-knit relationship in the story.

Sadly this relationship hits a sizeable roadblock in the third act when a twist in the film’s story occurs. The twist isn’t the issue; rather, it’s the execution. Screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen set up a suitable subplot for Jeremy Renner’s character which could’ve added another layer to his character but instead is utilized in a poorly handled red-herring ruse.

It feels like it’s been many years coming, but Tag is a frat comedy with an actual soul. Aside from a couple overly long comedy routines, Ed Helms and the rest of the cast are not just vehicles for easy jokes. These are people we could possibly know in our own lives. I promise you that after watching Tag, you’ll want to reconnect with your childhood friends.

The 1970s saw a wave of films about urban life, starring African-Americans, dubbed “blaxploitation” movies. Some of them were better than others, though many trafficked in stereotypes about black Americans that were hardly flattering. Still, they provided much-needed on-screen work for actors who might otherwise have been relegated to minor supporting roles, even if the characters they played were drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes and more. The movement, such as it was (it was already losing steam by the middle of the decade), also afforded opportunities to African-American directors (though many of the movies were directed by white directors, too), including noted photographer Gordon Parks and his son, Gordon Parks, Jr. The former helmed one of the best of the genre, Shaft (in which the hero is a private detective, rather than a crook), while the latter made Super Fly (where the hero is a cocaine dealer). Shaft is by far the better movie, but it has already been remade once, so now we get SuperFly (that lack of space in the title is how it’s spelled, for whatever reason). Did the world need this loose reconception of the original? Not really.

It is by no means a disaster, just neither very good nor interesting. Judging by the audience reaction at the preview screening I attended, it is also filled with no small number of unintentional laughs, due to how seriously it takes itself at the wrong moments. Case in point: there’s a risible shower threesome, complete with slo-mo moans and gyrations, that had this boy chuckling away. At other times, though, the film can be delightfully self-aware, as when lead character Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson, Sons 2 the Grave) jokes about his “perfect weave” as he is about to be thrown out of an airplane by Mexican cartel leader Adalberto Gonzalez (Esai Morales, more or less reprising his role from Netflix’s Ozark). Yes, it’s funny, and intentionally so, though much of the rest is just dumb. There are good turns from a few of the actors, including Jason Mitchell (Mudbound) as Priest’s partner in crime, Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from HBO’s The Wire) as his mentor, and Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan from ABC’s Once Upon a Time) as a corrupt detective who wants in on the drug trade. These disparate high points do not a compelling story make, however.

Mostly, though, it’s a celebration of excess, not all that different from a film like Martin Scorsese’s 2013 Wolf of Wall Street, similarly masquerading as a takedown of a culture that it inadvertently (or not) promotes through glossy shots of fine clothes and good times. Both movies feature copious amounts of cocaine, though here Priest deals, rather than snorts, as well as many naked women whose role is to titillate and nothing more. Priest is a minor kingpin who wants in on the big time, but just for one massive score so he can then retire in style. Along the way, his actions lead to death and destruction for some he held dear, but who really cares if it means you can sit on a boat in the Adriatic Sea, as do two lucky souls who make it out? All that hard work must lead to some reward, right? If only SuperFly had more self-awareness than about its protagonist’s hair, this could all be in service of some larger point. Instead, it’s only occasional fun, and not too much, at that.

]]>http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/film-reviews/film-review-superfly-is-missing-a-space-in-its-title-and-i-dont-know-why/feed0Father/Daughter Film Report’s FIRST THURSDAYS FILM FESTIVAL Selection: THE RENAISSANCEhttp://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/featured-specialty/father-daughter-film-reports-first-thursdays-film-festival-selection-the-renaissance
http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/featured-specialty/father-daughter-film-reports-first-thursdays-film-festival-selection-the-renaissance#respondSat, 09 Jun 2018 06:45:43 +0000http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/?p=13128Continue reading →]]>Hello…! We are David & Amanda, also known as the Father/Daughter Film Report & would like to share with you some of the best films seen and screenplays read from all the film festivals we have covered, the submissions we have received & those “accidentally” found…

AN EDUCATIONAL FILM…??? Yes, we chose this since it is MORE than a film that tells you ABOUT the Renaissance, more importantly, it illustrates HOW IT WAS ENGINEERED. Which means it shows all of us how we can use the lessons from the past to create a Renaissance for us today….

CLICK on the image below to see an excellent EDUCATIONAL film, one that made our Official Selection in our FIRST THURSDAY’S FILM FESTIVAL:

To be fair to director Michael Mayer (Flicka) and his troupe of actors, I have never been a fan of the original 1896 play The Seagull. The deeply talented Russian dramatist and short-story writer Anton Chekhov, born in 1860, created quite a lot of work in his short life (he died in 1904) that I love, including two of his plays – Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard – and many of his stories, The Lady with the Dogand The Grasshopperamong my absolute favorites. I simply find the excessively maudlin sentimentality of The Seagull unbearable, devoid of the later subtleties that Chekhov would develop, and this despite its status as the first great triumph of Konstantin Stanislavski’s then-nascent Moscow Art Theatre (which adopted a seagull as its official logo shortly thereafter). So, Mayer and company had a large hurdle to overcome to make me like their movie. Sadly, they trip over the first one, and never hit a full running stride thereafter, the frenetic camerawork and contrived performances only making things worse.

There are a few moments of grace, among them Annette Bening’s towering performance as the impulsive matriarch Irina Arkadina, an aging stage actress who presides over the affairs of her country estate like an imperious diva – sometimes sweet, sometimes cruel – desperate to hold onto glory and attention even as both threaten to fade away. Chekhov loved to write about the clash of generations and social classes in late-Tsarist Russia, foretelling a doom that he would never live to see. That theme is ever-present here, lifting the narrative beyond a mere portrait of an unpleasant family, though not as powerfully as it would be in later work. The other characters – Irina’s wannabe writer son Konstantin, her younger lover (an actual writer) Boris, her ailing brother Pyotr, Konstantin’s love interest (and aspiring actress) Nina, among others – all represent different facets of Russian society at the time, and their presence at a secluded rural location leads to fireworks (emotional and literal). The drama is compelling, Chekhov’s execution less so. And let’s not even talk about the heavy-handed symbolism of the titular bird, the death of which presages sorrow to come …

Mayer does not help the proceedings with his restless camera that sometimes skips around in handheld jitters, sometimes glides through beautifully smooth tracking shots, sometimes stands still, none of it for any discernible reason. The actors joust and jostle in a mannered melee, no one beyond Bening (20th Century Women) quite finding a consistent groove. Perhaps that’s the point: nobody is at ease in this rapidly changing world where social mores no longer mean what they used to. But scene to scene, nothing builds, and the big beats, such as they are, fall flat, accompanied by an incongruous jaunty score. Try as they might, the ensemble – from Elisabeth Moss (The Square) to Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) to Corey Stoll (Ant-Man) and more – can rise above neither the material nor the direction, and by the end we long, ourselves, to be that slaughtered seagull, clumsy metaphor and all.

After the 2014 underground hit John Wick established the interesting idea of a fortified sanctuary for criminals in the form of the Continental Hotel, it was only a matter of time until this clever concept inspired other filmmakers to take it even further. This year we see the first bona fide copycat of the Continental zeitgeist in the form of Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis.

Jodie Foster is the manager and 24/7 nurse of the infamous Hotel Artemis. For 28 years, the Artemis has been a secret haven for high- and low-end criminals who are in desperate need of bodily patchwork or a nice place to lie low. The nurse is willing to oblige her guests’ needs as long as the ironclad rules of the hotel are followed to the letter. As the new tenants start to collide with the old, the nurse quickly realizes her dedication to the rules of the Artemis is about to be put to the test.

Set in a fiery and water-stricken dystopian Los Angeles, Hotel Artemis is a visually stimulating hodgepodge of first-draft world-building and character beats. Pearce keeps the story moving at a consistent whirlwind pace to a fault. Just as Foster is about to lay down the all-important rules of the Artemis—the core foundation that will start to flesh out the film’s reality—a quick and bloody action sequence comes barreling in when you’re least expecting and ruins any sense of context. It’s confusing how a nearly two-hour movie manages to leave the “hotel for criminals” concept more untouched than the shorter Continental Hotel sequences in the John Wick films.

The film is lucky to have such a star-studded cast; otherwise, the intense action and flashy visual style would be useless. Cast members like Sterling K. Brown, Sophia Boutella, and Charlie Day run with their unscrupulous characters as far as Pearce’s uneven script allows. The mystery of their characters is on full display and the actors wisely apply it to each of their respective strengths as performers, but when the time comes to learn why these people chose this life of theft and murder, the juicy tidbits are quite dry.

Drew Pearce drops Hotel Artemis’ clever concept on the ground running without checking to see if the film is strong enough to stand on its own first. The violent action is gruesome and occasionally entertaining, but it’s never as memorable as the action in John Wick or as fun and outlandish as in Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake of Evil Dead. If there’s one reason to see Hotel Artemis, it’s Jodie Foster as the nurse. She is the unmistakable soul of the film and the only chance Drew Pearce has to create a second installment.

It is harrowing and almost unbelievable. Woodley is committed, and this establishes her as a versatile actress willing to endure tough filmmaking.

I do not know how to swim, nevertheless, I once took a summer of intensive catamaran sailing lessons in New Jersey. The most important thing I learned was to stay away from the boom. The only time I have been in an ocean – while not on a massive cruise ship – was in the Kingdom of Tongo, when an instructor took me into the water to see a mother whale with her calf. I was terrified.

I get seasick easily.

Baltasar Kormákur loves stories of super-human survival pitted against nature. He directed the 2015 film EVEREST and apparently, the actors were not on hand only for the close-ups but endured the same savage conditions that real hardcore mountain climbers endure. However, in 2017, Everest climbers reported the most dangerous part of the climb to the summit, The Hillary Step, had disappeared. Totally vanished.

However, the disappearance of The Hillary Step makes summiting easier and a lot faster. No one in the climbing community will say it, but I will. Coincidence or did someone take advantage of the disaster by getting rid of a nasty piece of rock?
The most important thing for the agencies who run “ultra-rich men’s” trips to Everest is getting their people to the summit. That’s the glory. Sherpas are given big bonuses when their guy makes it. If more people summit, it’s an economic boon to everyone. In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people in Nepal and 21 climbers died in an avalanche at Everest Base Camp.

For Kormákur’s next feature, he tackled water, ocean water. He filmed scenes for ADRIFT in the ocean for over 49 days. Kormákur was a sailor when he was younger, so he knew how to tack and make a bowline knot. Regarding filming ADRIFT, he said: “And water in the tank doesn’t look anything like the sea, you know? We spent almost as much time on the ocean as the real people did, and it’s done to prepare them physically and mentally. And we pretty much shot in sequence as much as possible, because among other things, they start to lose weight.”

Film Image: ADRIFT

ADRIFT is “inspired” by the true story of wanderlust, free-spirited 23-year-old Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley) and her sailor fiancé, the much older, experienced Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin). They are hired to take a beautiful, well-equipped yacht from Tahiti to San Diego via the Pacific Ocean. After being on the ocean for nearly a month, they would sail into the deadliest hurricane in recorded history. I would say this ranks right at the top or maybe is the top of survival stories.

[Though I read a harrowing book of survival – of a very different kind of survival – that would rank number three in the ranking hierarchy.]

Tami and Richard survive but Richard has been gravely injured. Tami must do everything herself to get them to shore. It would take 41 more days.

Woodley is absolutely amazing. It’s hard to believe she sought out this very tough physical role. And, essentially, their survival is all up to Tami. Tami must handle everything herself as well as nurse Richard.

Film Image: ADRIFT

Knocked unconscious from the yacht taking a beating during the hurricane, Tami wakes up and sees a barely alive Richard clinging to a raft. She gets him onboard and sets his badly damaged leg. Richard has massive internal injuries and cannot stand up.

Athletic Woodley has a youthful, strong body which gives her the ability to repair the badly damaged yacht, get it moving and handling the rough waters. This role was not a Sunday walk in the park. And since Woodley was on a functioning boat in the ocean, she had to grapple with the massive sails and the constant rocking.

Film Image: ADRIFT

For an actress, the role set up layers of grief and despair and, significantly, the absolute dread of never being rescued and dying of starvation. The harsh conditions showed, as Tami’s skin becomes sunburnt and then scarred by the sun. Unless you have read Oldham’s book, Red Sky in Mourning, the twist – a twist currently in vogue – is startling.

Film Image: ADRIFT

As for Claflin, the “heartthrob” arrived in Fiji at 210-plus pounds. He admits he was “fat.” Confident he would lose the weight quickly, Kormákur helped his process by making sure cast and crew were inadequately fed.

Since Woodley and Claflin filmed on the open ocean for 15-hour days off Fiji, a “making of” should be in the works. For Woodley and Claflin, ADRIFT proves they are adventurous, committed actors willing to endure non-movie star working conditions. So far, there have been no leaked tales of temper tantrums.

I love a good heist movie, even though I’d never commit the acts portrayed, myself. In Ocean’s 8, a companion (of sorts) to the previous three “Ocean’s” films – Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen – Sandra Bullock gathers a crack team of crooked female collaborators to prove that women are just as fun to watch being bad as are men. And though it may may break no new genre ground – even while laying a solid new gender foundation – and has a few plot holes big enough to drive a getaway truck through, the film is so raucously entertaining and joyously amoral that we don’t much care about its occasionally pedestrian faults. It’s great fun, with a solid cast that holds our attention from start to finish.

Bullock – in her first role since the 2015 Our Brand Is Crisis – plays Debbie Ocean, sister to Danny, the heretofore lead criminal of the series (absent here). Like brother, like sister: when we first meet her she is getting released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for a caper that went south. Walking out the jailhouse doors, Debbie wastes no time conning her way into luxury clothes and accessories and a posh suite at a top hotel. From there, she swoops back into civilian life, gathering together partners old and new to put into action the plan she devised while serving time. If she can exact revenge on the old lover whose testimony sent her away, all the better.

Debbie’s scheme involves stealing $150 million in diamonds from the annual Met Gala by convincing a down-on-her-luck clothes designer to insist that the luxury jeweler Cartier release a heavily guarded historic necklace to adorn the neck of the gala’s hostess. Not so easy, not so fast. Like all good organizers, Debbie seeks various specialists, each with a unique set of skills that, together, make this crazy stratagem possible. They include rapper Awkwafina, Cate Blanchett (Thor: Ragnarok), Helena Bonham Carter (Suffragette), Mindy Kaling (star of the series The Mindy Project), Sarah Paulson (Blue Jay) and singer Rihanna. Anne Hathaway (Colossal) gives a hilarious turn as the ostensibly clueless hostess, brilliantly spoofing her celebrity persona. Individually, they all impress; collectively, they dazzle. In a delightful touch, the half-German Bullock is even allowed to show off her maternal tongue. Everyone is in fine fettle, and we, the audience, are the lucky beneficiaries of their talent.

True, it is all in service of a celebration of crime, but that is the thrill we derive from such shenanigans. It’s a guilty pleasure to root for those who take pleasure in being guilty. Since director Gary Ross (Free State of Jones) moves each scene along at a jaunty pace, and the screenwriters take pains to make the antihero protagonists sympathetic (and funny), we rarely pause to consider exactly what, and whom, we applaud. Plus, the victims of said (nonviolent) crime are made so fatuous – by clear design – that it’s hard to lament their fate. Though often silly, Ocean’s 8 is a satisfying cinematic sleight of hand, injecting new life into an old series. I look forward to Ocean’s 9.

All upgrades should dazzle. What’s the point, otherwise, right? Not that they always do. however; so many are novel in name only, offering only more of the same at a different price point. But what if you, yourself, could be upgraded, a microchip implanted into your ruined body, allowing ultra-fast movement, lightning reflexes and omniscient thought. Who would say no to that? So what if the chip has a mind of its own and is it not content merely to serve, wanting to control, as well? For millennia, humans have sacrificed freedom for security and power. What would you give up to be a superhero?

Welcome to Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Robocop, and also uniquely its own thing. Starring an excellent Logan Marshall-Green (The Invitation) as Grey Trace, a man left a quadriplegic by the same men who killed his wife, the film takes us on a wild ride where violent action meets wry humor and fine fight choreography, the whole an entertaining amalgam of gloom and chuckle. Though occasionally hampered by over-the-top performances (not from Marshall-Green, always good) and wooden dialogue, the movie mostly works as a delightful pop-culture meditation on the dangers of combining artificial intelligence (AI) with biological material, something not that far-fetched, today. It’s good, dumb fun, and pretty smart about it, to boot.

Whannell (Insidious: Chapter 3) does quite a lot with very little. Working off what looks like a relatively small budget, he maximizes return on investment through extremely clever mise-en-scène. I normally enjoy neither the sight of graphic violence nor the sounds of crunching bones, but the inventiveness of the hand-to-hand combat, paired with the ingenious sci-fi details layered over a simple revenge story, make the grotesquerie work. The plot is simple enough: man watches wife die, almost dies himself and is paralyzed, then is given an “upgrade” wherein a tiny AI device is implanted in his spine, becomes all-powerful, seeks out men who killed said wife and kills them. What’s not to love?

True, all actors within are not created equal. I’ll avoid shaming them, but only Marshall-Green truly shines. Wait, not true. Simon Maiden, as the voice of STEM – our unruly AI – though never seen, is a treasure. His simultaneous monotone and emotionally evocative speech pattern – which recall Stanley Kubrick’s HAL 9000 computer – are the source of much of the film’s comedy (as well as its horror). He and Marshall-Green make a great team. So, forget the silliness of much of what is on display, sit back and give up control to STEM … I mean … Whannell, for just over 90 minutes, and enjoy the thrill of the new device.

Director Ron Howard is hailed as one of Hollywood’s safest, “get the job done” directors. What is on the page gets filmed in a timely manner: The budget doesn’t get bloated with $20,000 worth of custom cigars, the maybe orgies never get blind itemed, and everything goes smoothly. Passion, sex and eroticism are not Howard’s milieu. If you are not already a star, you cannot count on Howard to make you one.

If you are a hot super hero sex god looking for dramatic legitimacy via director Ron Howard, you’ve been warned.

Film Image – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Alden Ehrenreich, you need better management. First, if I were to see SOLO again, how many times would I count you being called “kid”? Or being placed in the background in group shots? Letting Woody Harrelson dominate every scene he is in shows off his 30 years in movies. He knows where the camera is. He knows how to play a scene so his best “take” is the one used. In SOLO, he even wears the most outer clothes, so he fills up the screen. Do you really think Harrelson just put on the costume the wardrobe department gave him? You need me on your next film. These tiny things are what I would notice. I would also demand you get more chiseled close-ups. You got skinny for this role, so why not show off? I would watch for any scene-stealing maneuvers from veterans. I’d make sure the editor picked the scenes that favored you.

I am not a STAR WARS ultra-maniacal fan, but I do have a vivid memory of the iconic character of Han Solo, from back in the day. Whoever takes the credit, be it Jonathan Kasdan and his father, Lawrence Kasdan, or any of the others who toyed with the screenplay, SOLO delivers an origin story that denies its main character will develop into the harden, self-interest underground rogue, Han Solo.

As an aside, children of A & B-list actors and actresses always seem to be following in the family’s business, but screenwriters? Is screenwriting a STAR WARS movie now the family business to be passed on?

Film Image – Solo: A Star Wars Story

It is being reported by Variety that 85% of the previous directors’ work, that is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s rumored Ace Ventura comedic filming, had to be reshot, even second unit material! So the second unit’s crew were also playing fast and loose with the hallowed written page. Howard’s four-month shoot entitled him to have the sole director credit. I am sure that Howard had absolutely no intention of coming in and cleaning up someone else’s mess without getting that credit. Would the president of Lucasfilm suggest otherwise?

Film Image – Solo: A Star Wars Story

It will take Han Solo ten more years to come into his original STAR WARS persona. In SOLO he is a teen thief (aka, a smuggler) with a big crush on a “way too savvy” partner-girlfriend, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke). Trying to flee from their muddy home planet of Corellia, they steal a valuable item. Making it to a transit point, Han slips through airport security but Qi’ra gets caught.

Han’s sidekick Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) is his real constant love interest – they shower together – and yes, we see how Han was initially hoodwinked by the most dandy-dressed Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover). Han’s naiveté sat down at the gambling table before he did.

Film Image – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Finally, we see what happened to primal survivor Qi’ra. Yes, the girl did show potential and landed squarely in the cat-bird’s seat – that is, as top lieutenant to an explosive, dolled-up, dancing villain, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). Is it more than a working relationship? Unfortunately, the timing is rather bad, what with Qi’ra sporting Dryden’s logo as a tattoo indicating her place in Vos’s empire eerily similar to the recently revealed branding of the Nxivm cult’s sex slaves.

This truly being an Empire far, far away dealing with beings of all kinds, why is a romance between Calrissian and his tough-talking droid, L3-37 (Phoebe-Waller Bridge), so implausible? I say, why not? Droids are thinking, feeling metal beings! They can always adopt.

Fitting neatly into the canon is the spitting-new Millennium Falcon. All the original set pieces are in place. Han’s ruthless bravado, so cleverly created by Harrison Ford, still does not match up as SOLO closes. Han is left abandoned by love and hasn’t yet an inkling, not even a passing thought, to realize the man he would become.

Film Image: Snowpiercer

If Howard had to throw out 85% of the stuff formerly shot, then someone offered up the SNOWPIERCER landscape as a quick fix and to appropriate the train sequence that opened CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011). Though I recall that the stunning train sequence from CASINO ROYALE (2006) may have been the first time a hero jumped on top of a high-speed moving train.

Hollywood loves Academy Award-winning filmmaker and great guy Ron Howard but his last few films have been box office disappointments. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (2011) starring hot, hot Chris Hemsworth, was rumored to have negatively harmed Hemsworth “quote.” Thank God for Thor! And did anyone remember seeing INFERNO (2016)? Howard delivered exactly what LucasFilm and Disney Studios wanted: A safe, middle of the road, plotless and inoffensive origin movie.

It was so glaring to me that happy-go-lucky Alden Ehrenreich needed a strong director who was there solely to bring him to movie star status. There were vast departments of technicians that did the heavy SF scenes. For Ehrenreich, being a background player in his own origin story is not his fault. Let’s throw some shade at the film’s editor, Pietro Scalia. There wasn’t any footage where Aldren showed off a devilish magnetism and testosterone-rich charm?

The general public knows very little about the customs and rituals of Orthodox Jews and are unfamiliar in seeing their closed and isolating featured in films.

The head of a North London Orthodox Jewish community, Rav Kruschka (Anton Lesser), suddenly dies and his estranged daughter Ronit (Weisz) has come from New York for the week-long rites celebrating his life. The Rav has had a profound impact on the community and is being richly honored. The arrival of Ronit is a shock to the entire closed-knit community since everyone seems to know why she left.

Ronit arrives at her childhood friend Dovid Kupperman’s (Alessandro Nivola) modest home. Dovid has been the most devoted student of the Rav’s and, unbeknownst to Ronit, has married. While Ronit has been living the casual life of one-night stands and the other diversions available in New York, Dovid has fully embraced the orthodox lifestyle. Greeting Ronit with a hug is forbidden. Dovid implores Ronit to treat the coming week’s events with respect.

As is followed throughout the Orthodox Jewish communities, married women wear modest plain clothes and synthetic wigs. Ronit, with her New York photographer’s clothes and perfectly arranged wild hair, is not received with the warmth she had hoped for from her relatives.

The primary reason Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair is that according to Jewish law it is to make it clear to other people, men especially, that they are married. There are also much deeper kabbalistic reasons, which is why many orthodox women also cover their hair in the privacy of their own homes, even when there are no other people around. But the main idea is this: Hair is very attractive and can and does cause men to look at women.
In terms of the wigs themselves, one of the generation’s biggest halachic authorities, ruled the following about wigs: They should only be made of synthetic hair, not natural hair, be of a certain restricted length and not look like real hair or more attractive than real hair.
Ronit has only one ally in her family, her Aunt Fruma (Bernice Stegers), but her Uncle Moshe (Alan Corduner) still sees her as an outcast.

Film Image: Disobedience

Dovid married Ronit’s best friend Esti (Rachel McAdams). The three of them were inseparable when growing up. When the Rav found Ronit and Esti in bed together, the fissure between father and daughter was complete. Ronit left the community and the Rav severed all ties to her. His obituary claimed he left no children.
Esti seems embarrassed that Dovid has asked Ronit to stay with them. Throughout the days Ronit is in the community waiting for the funeral ceremonies, Dovid is an understanding and calming influence even under the sexual tension that is apparent between Ronit and Esti.

It is Esti who makes the first sexual advance. When neighbors see Ronit and Esti in a compromising closeness, a report is made to the school where she teaches.
The truth slowly emerges that Esti has always been attracted to women and Dovid knew. The community hoped that marriage would insulate Esti, but the arrival of Ronit, which Esti instigated, reawakens her desires.

Their love making is intense and Weisz heightens the passion with an erotic fetish act. I’m categorizing it as “fetish” though it might have slipped into mainstream while I wasn’t paying attention.*

I’m not a pornography devotee, but I do a lot of reading. The last time I saw this act in a theatrical film was in 2001, in ORIGINAL SIN with Angelina Jolie and Thomas Jane. Yea, Angelina! But that was before she was anointed Blessed Angelina.

Weisz has never looked so naturally beautiful and so invested in the role of Ronit. McAdams, who has the more subdued part, is her erotic match. Nivola has a most difficult role since he must conform to the Orthodox standard of conduct. His movements and facial expressions are measured. He holds himself in a submissive manner, imbued with his religious training.

Film Image: Disobedience – Rachel Weiz and Rachel McAdams

Dovid is truly the heart of DISOBEDIENCE and you have empathy for him – what can he do when passion and love override commitment and community? Dovid’s demeanor and grace make him a truly caring and thoughtful person. Instead of rage, he continues to love his wife. And the knowledge of Ronit and Esti’s relationship means that for Dovid the honor to replace the Rav and lead the community has been put in jeopardy.

Chilean Sebastián Lelio, who directed and co-wrote (with Rebecca Lenkiewicz) the screenplay based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, continues to astonish with his exploration of varying “unconventional” aspects of cultures not his own. And since Rachel Weisz has a producer credit, this appears not to be a “paid gig” but something she sought to be involved in.

*“Patti Smith came to a screening of ‘Disobedience,’” Ms. Weisz says. “She’s lovely, so warm and generous. She got up and said, ‘I just want to talk about the spitting in the mouth. That was so beautiful to me. I didn’t care what gender either of you were. It was just love, beautiful love.’ Patti’s like a girl’s girl. She likes women.”

A heartbreaking coming-of-age tale about a 6-year-old girl adjusting to a new life with a new family, Summer 1993 showcases remarkable, naturalistic performances from its ensemble of actors – including two children – as well as fine direction from first-time feature-helmer Carla Simón. Hers is an autobiographical narrative in which young Frida (Laia Artigas), following the premature demise of both parents, is pulled from the home in Barcelona that she loves and thrown into the (to us) gorgeous Catalan countryside. To her, it’s no idyll – despite the love and attention showered on her by aunt, uncle and cousin – but a daily reminder of all that she’s lost. We watch as she pouts and misbehaves, understanding her pain, hoping she will emerge healed and whole. It’s a rough journey, but of such odysseys is good drama made.

It takes a while for the story threads to merge into a cohesive tapestry, but that is by design. Simón – who, according to the press notes, is telling a dramatized version of her own life – slowly weaves scenes together with gentle ellipses and brisk transitions. Very little is explained, at first, except what can be gleaned through context. We know right away that something has happened to send Frida away, but it is not until the 29th minute that we hear her speak the words “my mother died.” When that admission is followed by a parent’s horror that her own daughter might touch the blood on Frida’s knee (from a fall), we sense that there is even more to the tragedy than orphanhood. More details will emerge, but until they do, we are content to absorb the atmosphere of drowsy summer days, occasionally broken by sudden dramatic flare-ups caused by Frida’s ongoing coping process. Fortunately, she has very supportive foster parents.

They are her mother’s brother and his wife. Esteve (David Verdaguer) and Marga (Bruna Cusí) already have a child – Anna (Paula Robles), a few years younger – yet embrace Frida as their own. Their warmth and generosity of spirit are seductive, even to Frida, but the child’s trauma is too great to be so easily dispelled. The adoring Anna is an easy, gullible target of Frida’s jealous machinations, and we worry constantly that the older girl may take her vindictive games too far, precipitating a new calamity. Despite the lull of the warm weather – captured in evocative, palpable compositions by cinematographer Santiago Racaj – Frida’s simmering distress keeps us from our afternoon siesta. Something will have to break, and soon.

Verdaguer and Cusí imbue their characters with kindness and joy, however much Frida tests their resolve. Robles, as Anna, is a lovely, innocent foil to the desperately manipulative Frida, whom Artigas invests with a loneliness and melancholy that belies the surface smiles she flashes at adults to earn their praise. As a group, all four actors mesmerize. For such a seemingly small story, set almost entirely in one location, it’s extraordinary how high the stakes are raised, making the final catharsis – played almost as an afterthought following the resolution of one major conflict – a true release of emotion. Childhood matters, and to Simón, one of the most important moments of hers was the summer of 1993. She survived, and now gives us this lovely, gut-wrenching account of that ordeal and its happy conclusion. Just as did she, we emerge transformed by the experience.

What does it say about Solo: A Star Wars Story that the most interesting character in the film is one with no previous connection to the series? She’s a young woman named Qi’ra (pronounced Keera), played by the ever-appealing Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen on HBO’s Game of Thrones), whom we first meet in the company of the titular character, then meet again after a cinematic ellipsis of three years, during which time she has acquired a mysterious past, a wrist tattoo, and cryptic motivations. If the folks at Lucasfilm decide to stay in this time period of a “galaxy far, far away,” I hope they give Ms. Qi’ra her own spin-off. She’s worth it. Han Solo, on the other hand …

Actually, he’s fine, just not nearly as interesting. Played here by Alden Ehrenreich – so delightful in the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! – he’s still finding his place in the universe, though already a rebel (in the James Dean, rather than political, sense). Unfortunately, he has yet to develop the bravura cocksure insouciance that made Harrison Ford so appealing in the original Star Wars. He’s also, at just under 5’10”, over 3 inches shorter than Ford, which matters, since his physicality is simply less dominant. That said, Ehrenreich is otherwise a capable actor, and holds his own.

As does the script, for the most part. We begin in medias res, with young Han and Qi’ra, partners in desperation in “a lawless time” (as the opening titles inform us), engaged in a scheme to escape the hellhole of a planet where they’ve grown up as orphans/prisoners. Things don’t go quite as planned, so Han, with nowhere to run, and with dreams of being a flyboy, enlists in the armed services of the nascent Empire (yes, that Empire). It’s his only option.

Flash forward three years, and Han is now a grunt in the middle of a war. Catching sight of some sketchy characters on the periphery of the conflict, he guesses they are not legit (they are smugglers, it turns out), and decides to throw in his lot with them, though they rebuff him time and again. Stubborn, Han persists, even after being thrown into a pit to fight a horrific creature that turns out to be a filthy and heavily matted Chewbacca, everyone’s favorite Wookie, whom Han befriends in their mutual escape. Now with the smugglers – which include Woody Harrelson (Wilson) and Thandie Newton (Maeve on HBO’s Westworld) – Han is finally moving towards becoming the man we know. They even let him pilot their ship.

After an exciting, if ill-fated, high-tech train heist – the smugglers try to boost some coaxium, a highly volatile ore that powers space flight – Han and the gang end up beholden to the Crimson Dawn, a crime syndicates in cahoots with the Empire, with a menacing Paul Bettany (Journey’s End) in charge. It’s here we meet Qi’ra again, and though she waxes circumspect about how she got there, she and Han quickly renew their past flirtation. Soon, she joins the crew as they head off in search of more coaxium. First, though, they need a new vessel.

Which brings us to Lando Calrissian, played by Donald Glover (FX’s Atlanta) with the perfect combination of self-regard, charisma and machismo – with some genuine bravery thrown in – that we remember so well from Billy Dee Williams’ turn in The Empire Strikes Back. Indeed, his presence does Ehrenreich no favors, reminding us what the nominal star lacks (Harrelson’s grizzled charm also doesn’t help). After a gambling match gone awry, they all pile into Lando’s Millennium Falcon (a muted version of John Williams’ Star Wars theme playing upon Han’s first glimpse of the ship we know will one day be his). And off they go.

I won’t list further plot details as a play-by-play, but it’s relatively well constructed and good fun, far less messy than The Last Jedi (which still had its appeal). We meet a cool new droid, witness well-staged fights – both on the ground and in space – and enjoy witty banter. It’s a rousing-enough odyssey, and though it could be a little shorter (it clocks in at 135 minutes), mostly holds our interest throughout. Director Ron Howard (Rush) delivers serviceable goods, with occasional moments of genuine narrative delight, ensuring that this long-running intergalactic series will continue, for better or for worse, into the foreseeable future.

Fantastic! It may be R-rated, but you will see it twice or three times.

DEADPOOL shocked Hollywood with its $783million worldwide box office. It had a tiny $58million budget, an R-restricted rating and a first-time director, Tim Miller. Star Ryan Reynolds, after an inauspicious but constant career (and a few outright bombs), took all the credit.

For most of us, lousy acting and a lack of cinematic charisma would quickly kill our budding career, and then there are some – like Reynolds – who keep making movies and being cast regardless of audience appeal – until they strike gold. Imagine having a team of people whose sole purpose is to make you a star!

DEADPOOL’s director, Tim Miller, the new boy in town, also wanted a hefty slice of the glowing credit, especially since it was reported that he did a lot of the outstanding visuals in post-production for free. Miller made DEADPOOL look like a bigger-budgeted, tentpole movie.

Or, was Miller’s PR Team responsible for this leak?

The media pundits questioned Reynolds’ ability to make DEADPOOL 2 without Miller at the helm. Their separation was called “creative differences.” Or, “the clash of the egos.” Miller and Reynolds were not on speaking terms by the time DEADPOOL opened.

Reynolds has not only succeeded, he (along with a big-budgeted production, a great director and the returning screenwriters (Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and himself) have made a terrific, exhilarating movie.

Film Image: DEADPOOL 2

I will say in confidence that Han Solo will not be an adequate challenger blunting DEADPOOL 2’s success. After the first 5 minutes, I knew I would see DEADPOOL 2 two more times. For the 3rd viewing, I’ll use that closed-caption device. I missed 75% of everything Reynolds said. I think he made up some new words only fanatics understood. What I did hear was brilliant sarcasm and a peerless take on everything including the Sunni-Shiite conflict and the plight of the remaining 10,000 blue whales. Deadpool also lamented for loss of teaching cursive in the American educational system.

From the opening minutes, Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Reynolds) lets you know exactly how the rest of the movie is going to go. Deadpool narrates everything. It’s you and him in on the joke – it’s a silly movie with a silly premise!

DEADPOOL 2 director Davis Leitch raised the bar of female killers with ATOMIC BLONDE. This film is sensational. Unlike other female brute-fighters of cinema, Leitch made sure Charlize Theron didn’t walk away from a vicious fight without serious body bruises. My favorite scene is when Theron is fighting a big guy in an abandoned apartment. Their fight is so realistic that when they stumble and lose their footing – it was definitely not a choregraphed stunt. One-hundred-pound female stars – Kate Beckinsale, Milla Jovovich and Alicia Vikander – look great in leather but cannot pound men to the ground with their bare hands. Men have a genetic – its testosterone – advantage.

Wade Wilson has made peace with his face and he and girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) are talking about having a kid. How rad of Wade! Vanessa must be still escorting – their place is really homey.

Film Image: DEADPOOL 2

When tragedy strikes Wade is carted off to X-Men headquarters. His unruly ways don’t fly straight with the X-Men ethos, so Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic) is put in charge of taking Deadpool and turning him into a proper X-Man. Wearing an X-Men “trainee” vest, Deadpool is like the black sheep son no one talks about. Deadpool runs into Professor Xavier’s collection of fresh mutant candidates and takes a special interest in weird Russell, aka aptly named, Firefist (Julian Dennison).

When Russell is captured by Cable (Josh Brolin), a time-traveling cyborg soldier, Deadpool needs backup so he puts an ad in Craigslist for superheroes. This is one of the most engaging parts of the movie. And the crafty writers have summoned up mutant Domino (Zazie Beetz), whose mutant power is that she’s lucky. How brilliant is that power!

But the real power is Reynolds delivery and the absurd situations he puts himself in. It would be a shame to reveal any of the great visual nonsense of DEADPOOL 2. The scenes in the X-Men world – and Deadpool’s total disregard for the snotty young mutants – is flawless. And there is so much insider stuff that Deadpool hurls at the viewer, I will keep googling for a fan to transcribe the hyper-bullet-train mouth of Deadpool.

Deadpool versus Logan? Deadpool’s mocking of the DC Universe? How will the DC Universe fight back?

If Reynolds has been a “lucky” star with exaggerated narcissism and an overpowering belief in his own grandness, DEADPOOL 2 confirms, we will all put up with him being a prick.

First, a few words about German actor Moritz Bleibtreu. Ever since I first saw him in Tom Tykwer’s 1998 Run Lola Run (in which he played Lola’s boyfriend, Manni), he has impressed with his seemingly effortless charm, whether in films like Fatih Akin’s In July, Steven Spielberg’s Munich, Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex or Bill Condon’s mostly spiritless The Fifth Estate, to name but some. That poise and charisma are on full display in Bye Bye Germany, a movie that pulls off the near-impossible hat trick of combining light comedy, romance and the Holocaust in a way that offers a fresh perspective on this well-worn (but always vital) topic. Indeed, Bleibtreu’s presence is one of the reasons it works. The other is the extremely smart script.

Directed by Sam Garbarski (Irina Palm) and written by Michel Bergmann (adapted from his Die Teilacher trilogy of novels), Bye Bye Germany starts off looking like a bleak exploration of the Holocaust, with a one-legged dog (a sharp, recurring metaphor) hobbling out of a concentration camp, at night, but then quickly morphs into something far more unusual. It’s 1946, and the war is over. Germany’s surviving Jews have not yet left, but are gathered, instead, in “displaced-person” camps (which look a lot like Nazi death camps, from the outside). Bleibtreu’s David Bermann, cracking wise, even if the sole survivor of a family of Jewish linen merchants, gathers a team of like-minded tough men to sell sheets and towels to the local German population. His hope is to earn enough to be able to go to America with a nice startup fund. L’Chaim, he tells his recruits: Hitler is dead, but we’re still alive.

With great energy and gusto, the men go to work, occasionally sharing stories of their horrific experiences in various camps. A determined, clever bunch, they run cons on the Germans to make quick bucks (though the product they hawk is genuine). “We’re the Jewish revenge,” says one. Meanwhile, Bermann, in a surprise twist, disappears on some afternoons, forced to testify to the American occupying forces about his alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Improbable as his tale seems, spinning it to a very skeptical Special Agent Sara Simon (Antje Traue, Despite the Falling Snow) – a German-born interpreter for the U.S. army, also Jewish – what unfolds in his narrative is so improbable it can’t not be true, despite Bermann’s by this point well-established pattern of witty embellishment. It’s so crazy it must have happened.

Perhaps the film’s greatest strength is the way it explores the sheer psychotic madness of the Final Solution, and how little the rest of the world did to stop it, as well as the oppressive guilt of the survivors. Those who perpetrated the genocide and/or acquiesced to it were mostly just ordinary folks – the “banality of evil” that Hannah Arendt famously described – willing or passive participants in the system of the day. There is nothing extraordinary in humanity’s propensity to slide into violence. There is. however, always something exceptional in good dramatic treatments of difficult subjects, particularly when they offer innovative new takes on them. Though a little too pat in some of its resolutions, Bye Bye Germany is bracingly original, and a powerful new addition to the canon of Holocaust movies.

A harmless-enough film featuring a cast of appealing sexa-, septua- and octogenarians, Book Club might appeal to anyone looking for a reprieve from the endless cycle of Marvel films and other CGI-infested mayhem. Directed by first-time helmer Bill Holdeman (co-writer, A Walk in the Woods) from a script by Holderman and first-time writer Erin Simms, the film is equal parts geniality and pablum, with a dash of sex-laced humor thrown in for good measure. Your mileage will surely vary, but if watching a movie about upper-middle- and upper-class white folks living in a glorious bubble of privilege is not your thing, you should probably stay away.

Still, it is great fun to see Candice Bergen (Bride Wars), Jane Fonda (Our Souls at Night) – who is, remarkably, 81 years old, and does not look it – Diane Keaton (And So It Goes) and Mary Steenburgen (Katie Says Goodbye), playing friends who have been part of a monthly book club for ages. In this current cycle, they are tackling the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, which prompts them all to re-examine their staid or non-existent sex lives. It’s hardly the most topical of reads, in 2018, and not really worthy of these esteemed actress, but I’m sure author E L James is not complaining about the extended infomercial.

Hormones newly ablaze, our amicable quartet launches themselves into activities of raunch and romance. Andy Garcia (At Middleton), Don Johnson (Alex of Venice), Craig T. Nelson (Get Hard), and Richard Dreyfuss (Cas & Dylan) all make charming appearances, charisma oozing from every pore. Moments of occasional fraught drama are all eventually resolved to everyone’s great (and obvious) pleasure. Some funny jokes land, some don’t, and the ultimate effect is like spending time in well-worn, pleasant company. It could be better; it could be worse.

]]>http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/film-reviews/film-review-book-club-makes-a-very-light-read/feed0Film Review: The Jokes and the Insanity Are Dialed to the Nth Degree in “Deadpool 2”http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/film-reviews/film-review-the-jokes-and-the-insanity-are-dialed-to-the-nth-degree-in-deadpool-2
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Deadpool 2 is the second installment of the Deadpool franchise and is directed by David Leitch and written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds. Since the events of the first film, life has been perfect for Deadpool, a.k.a. Wade Wilson, and his girlfriend Vanessa, played again respectively by Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin. D.P. slices and dices bad guys left and right from nine to five and goes home to a girlfriend who’s as crazy as he. The only two things that could possibly ruin D.P.’s life is a half-robot mercenary from the future named Cable or a rogue teenage mutant. Sadly, for the merc with a mouth, both decided to show up.

Deadpool 2 follows proper sequel protocol and amps up what made the first outing so enjoyable while putting in the crucial component that was missing the whole time. You expect Deadpool to deconstruct the superhero genre down to the smallest trope and Reese, Wernick and Reynolds double down on the most beloved and most dreaded clichés of Hollywood sequels without mercy. Ryan Reynolds has cultivated the character of Deadpool into a fine, deranged wine. Once you’ve researched the time and passion Reynolds has put into this character, it’s no surprise why the wisecracking killer in red is such a charming and welcoming entry into the superhero genre.

The humor is why you will see Deadpool 2, but not necessarily the movie’s sole reward. Deadpool is given the chance to go through an actual character arc, thanks to his relationships with Cable and a mutant teenager played respectively by Josh Brolin and Julian Dennison. D.P.’s relationship with Vanessa in the first film was fun, but Reese and Wernick bookended the film with scenes of the lovely couple instead of spreading it out throughout the film. In Deadpool 2, the core relationship hits several emotional beats which leads to a climactic resolution that has the dramatic weight Reese and Wernick wanted for the first Deadpool.

Deadpool 2 shines above its processor with the element you’d least expect. The first Deadpool had the great jokes and delightful lead characters, but it still sported a contrived story with not enough human sincerity to make up for it. David Leitch and the writing team are smart enough to recognize the flaws of the first film and flawlessly blend this new sense of heart with Deadpool’s brutal and cynical wit, which audiences have grown to love.

Zhao has created a charismatic star and a brilliant – must see twice – view of a powerful segment of American life.

Writer-director Chloe Zhao has taken an outsider’s view into the world of rodeo horse riding in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This highly dangerous sport is best engaged in by young men seduced by the 8 second adrenaline rush, regardless of the potential for physical harm.

Most participants are addicted to the danger.

Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau), has survived a severe head injury in a rodeo horse riding event. His scalp is stapled and the wound covers half of his head. Brady’s life is centered around horses and the rodeo. All his friends are riders. He lives with his Asperger syndrome afflicted 15-year old sister Lilly (Lilly Jandreau) and his father (Tim Jandreau). Brady’s mother has died and his mentor and best friend Lane (Lane Scott), who once was a promising rodeo rider, suffered a devastating fall resulting in his being paralyzed and unable to speak. He is confined to living in a care facility.

Lilly is Brady Jandreau’s real-life sister and Tim Jandreau is his real-life father. Jandreau’s friends are his real-life friends. And this is astonishing, because Zhao’s skill at directing belies their lack of training.

Many of today’s rodeo stock providers have developed sophisticated breeding programs to allow them to breed horses specifically to buck.

Having a horse bred to “specifically buck” is what makes the rodeo such an exciting and thrilling spectator sport. And it is exactly “bucking” where serious injuries occur.

Film Image: The Rider

Brady visits Lane often and even though Lane represents the real dangers of rodeo riding, Brady continued riding. And now he is told he cannot ride any longer. In the world Brady lives in, sympathy is not a widespread virtue. He is expected to get a job. He gets a humiliating job at a supermarket, where people come up to him as if he was still a local rodeo star.

When a friend asks Brady to “break” his wild horses, we really see that this naturalistic newly-minted actor is really a highly skilled horse trainer.

Brady works easily with the horses but one, Apollo, is his most challenging. Without director Zhao’s interference, Brady works with the horse, finally getting on him, then riding him and teaching Apollo what the reins mean. They form a bond, but Brady’s father warns him not to ride Apollo. But Apollo is a beautiful animal.

The rodeo continues to hold the core meaning of life to Brady and his friends. When he visits Lane, he plays Lane’s rodeo videos and makes a pair of reins out of rope, so Lane can pretend to ride once again. These scenes are utterly charming.

Bareback bronc riding is a rough and explosive rodeo event. The most physically demanding of all the rodeo events, it is also the first event to compete in most rodeos. Cowboys ride rough horses without the benefit of saddle or rein, trying to stay on the horse while the horse attempts to buck off the rider.

Zhao met Jandreau, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, in 2015 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. She knew immediately that Jandreau had a compelling story to tell but more importantly, she knew she could make a brilliant film and create a star. Jandreau is so expressive and the way Zhao directs and has him photographed, she has crafted a character similar to James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.

There is no love interest in Brady’s story. And that is because Zhao fell in “cinematic love” with him. You can see it in every one of Brady’s scenes. You can tell Zhao adored him. He never looks bad – even with half his head shaved and a very bad haircut. Every actor and actress need a director that invests this kind of commitment to them. When an actor or actress does not have a director that likes them, it shows.

Film Image: The Rider

I often see it and it is not something that I can easily define. Let’s just say – as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said: “I know it when I see it.” *

Zhao focuses many scenes on Brady’s face. He must have trusted her completely, since so much of his story reveals an emotional weight he is really carrying.

You will not believe any of the people in this movie are not professional actors and actresses. If Brady Jandreau must really never ride a horse again, he has a very big future in films – as long as he finds a director that falls in love with him.

*Used by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio.

]]>http://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/film-reviews/victoria-alexander-reviews-the-rider/feed0Many Times a Charm: Reflections on the 2018 Maryland Film Festivalhttp://www.filmfestivaltoday.com/fft-festival-coverage/many-times-a-charm-reflections-on-the-2018-maryland-film-festival
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2018 Maryland Film Festival poster on front of Parkway Theater.

As I have done almost every year since moving back to Baltimore – city where I also spent 8 years, as a child – in 2006, I attended the Maryland Film Festival (MdFF) during the first week of May (which ran May 2-6). The 2018 iteration of this terrific showcase of independent cinema – founded in 1999 – included 40 feature-lengths films (fiction and documentary) and over 90 shorts (of a multiplicity of genres), the latter organized into 11 separate programs. Though there were no world premieres among the features this time around, the festival offered local moviegoers a broad variety of content, with filmmakers attending from near and far. A good time was had by me, and I imagine by all (though tastes may vary, for sure).

Beyond the screenings, the festival offered panels, as it always does, including one on Baltimore-based stories (which yours truly moderated), of which there were more than a few on the docket, including All Square (John Hyams), Charm City (Marilyn Ness), Sickies Making Films (Joe Tropea), Sollers Point (Matthew Porterfield), and This Is Home (Alexandra Shiva). It’s wonderful to see one’s city host such a vibrant gathering and mixing of cinephiles and cinéastes, particularly when the main venue – for the second year in a row – is the beautifully restored Parkway Theater, located in the heart of the midtown Station North Arts District. There’s nothing like seeing today’s movies in a gorgeous movie palace of yesteryear.

I had seen some of the films in the program at other festivals, including SXSW and Tribeca, but most of what I watched was new to me. What follows is a list of my Top 10 favorites (6 documentaries and 4 fiction films), listed in alphabetical order, by category. However, since the MdFF’s opening night traditionally consists of a slate of shorts, I’ll start with those (the only shorts program I saw).

Festival director Jed Dietz introduces the opening-night shorts.

OPENING NIGHT SHORTS:

This year, there were six short films in the opening program, listed as follows, with my asterisks before each of my three favorites:

Accident, MD is a documentary that explores the lives and struggles – particularly with healthcare – of the members of lower-middle-class community in rural Maryland. They have choice words for our current system of government, though their political opinions run the gamut. It’s biting and entertaining, while also respectful of its subjects.

Agua Viva is an animated piece about the inability of a Chinese immigrant, working as a manicurist in Miami, Florida, to articulate her inchoate longing for a better life. The expressive hand-drawn, two-dimensional look to the film conveys a sense of tight quarters and lost opportunities, while the contrasting bright colors represent the young woman’s hopeful dreams. Melancholia gets a bright makeover.

Milk, though a narrative fiction film, feels very much like a documentary. A young woman – a farmworker – finds out she is pregnant, and her ambivalent feelings about this fact are confronted daily as she watches pregnant cows gives birth. The camera holds for a long time as certain animals take especially long to expel their calves (sometimes painful to watch, but with the subsequent relief of the eventual success). Milk is collected, young cows nursed, and all the while our protagonist ponders her future. Quiet and elliptical, the film implants its evocative images firmly in one’s brain.

DOCUMENTARIES:

Charm City (Marilyn Ness, 2018) [The paragraph, below, is an adaptation of both a longer review I wrote for Hammer to Nail, which has yet to post, as of this writing, and of the capsule review I wrote about Tribeca. Yes, I saw it at that other festival, but feel it also belongs here, given its subject matter.]

Film poster: “Charm City”

From director Marilyn Ness (Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale) comes Charm City, an insightful new documentary about the challenges faced by low-income, African-American residents of Baltimore as they grapple with profound civic neglect and its resulting violence. The title comes from one of Baltimore’s nicknames (legacy of a 1970s slogan campaign), and is certainly more than a little ironic, given what we see of the place. Ness’ movie comes on the heels of other such hard-hitting exposés of fraught urban landscapes, including The Force (about Oakland), Quest (about Philadelphia), and, also about Baltimore, Baltimore Rising, Rat Film and, the most buoyant of the bunch, Step. Here, the director turns her attention to one specific neighborhood, Rose Street, in Southeast Baltimore, where the inhabitants, suffering from a 50% unemployment rate, struggle to make ends meet and to keep their streets clean and safe. It’s often a losing battle, but someone has to try. Embedded with both community members and police officers, Ness and her crew showcase competing points of view – not always in complete opposition – to create a vibrant tapestry where hope and despair collide, the one never quite succumbing to the other.

This fascinating examination of gender fluidity – of people who identify as “genderqueer” – follows 5 individuals in the Netherlands who defy the usual social constructs of male and female. Three of them started life as biological men, and now adopt hairstyles and clothing and mannerisms that society reads as feminine, while two others – twins, actually – are biological women with many ostensibly masculine characteristics. They are all comfortable existing in the gray zone between genders, and director Dros (whose first feature this is) employs a terrific visual device of a glass wall on which the subjects draw a line – with male at one end and female on the other – and try to place themselves within it. They stand across the glass from the camera, and we watch as they struggle to define who they are, sometimes laughing and shrugging off the whole notion. Indeed, the joy and love of self-discovery propels the movie towards its satisfying conclusion, leaving us happy to have known these good, brave, pioneering folk.

The documentary played with a wonderful 16-minute fiction short, We Forgot to Break Up (Chandler Levack), about a former female rock-group manager who shows up, years after leaving the band, as a man. It’s a reunion tour, so the performers are already stressed about the financial risks they’re taking, and none too happy to see their old friend, whose gender switch feels like a betrayal, to some. In its brief running time, the movie does quite a lot, leading us to a touching final moment of quasi-reconciliation. I wanted the film to last even longer.

Director Weingrod (whose first feature this also is) sets his profoundly moving film in the St. Louis French Hospital in Jerusalem, which – founded in 1889 – has attended to the terminally ill since 1951. Though located in a city rife with religious discord (and occasional harmony, as well), the hospital, though Catholic, is home to patients and staff of all faiths. It can be tough to watch footage of the elderly in decline, especially since we know that many are probably dead by the time we see them (indeed, the movie’s credits indicate as much), but it is also extremely heartwarming to see the good people who take care of them and make their final days as calm and joyful as possible. Patients take art classes, discuss philosophy and history, and see family and friends, all the while in frequent pain. One attendant nurse – David, a fiftyish (he’s fit, so could be older and just looks younger) Italian monk – is the true star (though everyone shines) of the piece, selfless and committed to his work, and amazingly multilingual. The two old men with whom we spend the most time – Simon, from Tunisia, and Yigal, a local Jerusalemite – both clearly beloved by their visiting relatives, do their best to go gently into that good night, though it is not easy. Their grace and charm speak volumes about their lives, and about the beauty and tragedy of the human condition.

Baltimore native Tropea (Hit & Stay) has crafted a supremely entertaining and informative history of the nation’s longest-running censorship board (1916-1981) in – you guessed it – Maryland! Featuring a wealth of great movie clips, archival footage and talking-head interviews, the movie takes us on a journey through the twisted world of morality-based legislation that provokes horror and derision, both. Tropea and co-writer/editor Robert A. Emmons Jr. show great mastery of tone and aesthetics as they walk us through the high and low points of cinematic development. Cult filmmaker (and Baltimore native, as well) John Waters, subject to the board’s constant attacks in his early years, as one might imagine, shows up with some choice words about its methods, as do many other survivors of the period. “Sickies Making Films” is a direct quote from the infamous Mary Avara, who served on the board until the bitter end. That’s how she saw those who rejected her traditional Catholic mores (for the record, Waters was raised Catholic, as well). By choosing her words as the movie’s title, Tropea and Emmonds urge all to wear it as a badge of honor. Sounds good to me!

Winner of the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Alexandra Shiva’s latest film follows a group of Syrian refugees as they navigate the complexities of their new lives in Baltimore. There are only 21,000 Syrian refugees in the United States right now, with 372 of them here. They have but 8 months to become self-sufficient, after which they lose all financial assistance, and if they can’t then support themselves, may not be allowed to stay. That’s a lot of pressure for folks uprooted from their homeland, without English-language skills, mostly unable to work in their original professions. We watch as the four families chosen by Shiva (How to Dance in Ohio) as her main focus each struggle in different ways to make ends meet. They encounter both prejudice and love – fortunately, more of the latter, no matter the policies of our country’s current administration – and by the end of the film are well on their way to achieving some kind of stability. Still, for some it is not so mildly bittersweet, cut off from their culture and education, adrift in the quagmire of bureaucracy. Shiva, intimately ensconced with her subjects, shows us their journey’s ups and downs, reminding us that we are all one species, no matter our differences. Welcome to Baltimore!

As an American child in the 1970s, I grew up watching wonderful programming from the nascent PBS that included the great, inspiring Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. As I got older, I admit that I found the show increasingly corny, but I never doubted the host’s good will and love for children. His was always a calm, reassuring presence that represented a welcome respite from the chaos of the world (and of the other, admittedly wildly entertaining, shows on TV). Some (delusional) people may see Fred Rogers’ desire to make everyone feel valued as a pernicious evil in this world, but the rest of us know that we need more of him, and less of them. In Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) gives us the cinematic homage that Rogers deserves, rich and complex in its portrait and compelling in its delivery of narrative. No pure hagiography, the film examines the man’s motivations and aspirations, and even his occasional lapses in judgment (such as not initially supporting a gay colleague as he should have). All who knew him and discuss him on camera (even that gay colleague) speak of him with love and joy (he died in 2003). In so many ways an exemplary human being – among other things, an ordained Presbyterian minister who lived up to his calling – Fred Rogers showed us that it’s OK to be gentle and kind; that, in fact, it is necessary for us to thrive. Thank you, Mister Rogers, and thank you, Mister Neville, for this movie.

From director John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) and writer Timothy Brady (making his debut) comes All Square, a rough and rowdy gem of a movie that tells of small stakes with big consequences. Michael Kelly (Doug Stamper on Netflix’s House of Cards) plays John, a bookie whose black-market business is being severely undercut by online gambling and the unwillingness of his clients to pay him the money they owe. Though not willing to resort to violence to recoup his losses, John has no compunction about robbing clients to obtain some collateral on the loans. As you can imagine, it’s a recipe for trouble. So is deciding to bet on local Little League games which turns out to be his next venture. John is a sucker for self-destruction, it seems. Kelly brings a laid-back vibe to his performance that belies the crazy shenanigans of his character. Often – though not always – amoral, he’s so chill about it that it’s hard to hate him. Set in Dundalk, a suburb of Baltimore, All Square also benefits from the unfamiliar (in cinematic terms), lived-in feel of this working-class neighborhood. The film – which takes its title from the inevitable squaring of accounts that John must face up to, at the end – combines comedy and drama in a thoroughly engaging mix.

Winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, The Miseducation of Cameron Post – based on the eponymous 2012 book by Emily M. Danforth – tackles the thorny issue of conservative Christianity and homosexuality, following a group of teens sent to gay-conversion-therapy school. From director Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior), the movie tells an important story of the hypocrisy, bad science and cruelty behind such places, but never quite rises beyond the minimum aesthetic challenges of the material (Sundance award notwithstanding). Starring an excellent Chloë Grace Moretz (Clouds of Sils Maria) in the title role, with John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane) and Jennifer Ehle (Wetlands) as the reeducation leaders, and Sasha Lane (American Honey) and Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant) as fellow pupils, the film has no shortage of fine performances. There are also plenty of well-realized individual scenes, even if the whole is somewhat less than the sum of its parts. An adequate representation of a vital topic – you really can’t pray the gay away – it deserves to be seen, but leaves one wanting more.

My favorite narrative feature of the festival, Nancy – winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival – stars a brilliant Andrea Riseborough (Shadow Dancer) in the title role, playing a lonely thirtysomething woman who becomes convinced she may be the grown-up version of a long-ago-abducted girl shown on TV. Poor Nancy doesn’t have much going for her, working temp jobs and living with her sick, quasi-abusive mother. When that parent dies, and she sees a program on the upcoming 30th anniversary of the kidnapping, complete with a photo of what that girl would look like – which bears a striking resemblance to herself – she contacts that family. Skeptical at first, the couple, played by an excellent J. Smith-Cameron (Christine) and Steve Buscemi (The Cobbler), slowly come around to the idea that Nancy could, indeed, be their long-lost child, all the while waiting for the DNA results. We have our own doubts, having seen questionable behavior from Nancy, earlier, but we, too, become seduced by the possibility of a heart-rending happy end. Writer/director Christina Choe, making her feature debut, has a perfect sense of mise-en-scène, cinematic composition and performance, carefully moving the story forward to the catharsis to come. I was deeply moved, though not in the way I thought I would be. This is fiction filmmaking at its emotionally compelling best.

Sollers Point (Matthew Potterfield, 2017) [The paragraph, below, is an adaptation of a longer review I wrote for Hammer to Nail, which has yet to post, as of this writing. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I know Porterfield, casually, as the film world here is small (we call our town “Smalltimore” for a reason)].

Film poster: “Sollers Point”

From Matthew Porterfield (I Used to Be Darker) – another Baltimore native – comes his fourth feature, Sollers Point, set – as were the other three – in his hometown. A hard-hitting examination of angry male self-destructiveness, and the lonely dead end to which it leads, the film takes no narrative prisoners. If you like your cinema with a bite, chew on this. Lead actor McCaul Lombardi (Patti Cake$) – yet another local – delivers a searing performance as Keith, a twentysomething overgrown boy recently out of prison, who when we first meet him is still saddled with an ankle bracelet, under house arrest. His crime is never directly specified, though it’s most likely drug-related, based on subsequent revelations. He lives with his father (a very fine Jim Belushi, Katie Says Goodbye) in a very uneven equilibrium, all the while pining for his ex-girlfriend (Zazie Beetz, about to make a big splash in Deadpool 2) and their dog (or “his” dog, as he sees it). Though Keith seems to mean well, trouble starts, albeit slowly, as soon as that bracelet comes off. There’s a rage that simmers just below Keith’s outwardly calm demeanor, its origins never quite clear. There is also a kernel of hope in him, however, or we might not care so much, and Porterfield leaves us with a sense that the next chapter, were it told, might not be quite so desolate. For now, we have this delightfully bitter tonic to swallow.

And that’s it. See you next year!

Baltimore’s Station North Arts District, with the Parkway Theater in the background.

Whether or not one has a favorable opinion of iconic French director Jean-Luc Godard – creator of such classics of the 1960s New Wave as Breathless, Contempt and, my personal favorite, Alphaville– I would imagine that Godard Mon Amour, the new film from Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), requires some kind of a position on, or knowledge of, the man and/or his work in order to engage. Going in cold will not work. If, however, one has even a light acquaintance with his output – particularly that of his initial flowering as a filmmaker – then this movie should provide delights aplenty, even if the whole doesn’t quite cohere into something truly profound. With a committed, stylized performance from lead actor Louis Garrel (My King) in the titular role, the film is the perfect simultaneous homage and takedown of its subject.

I must confess to not appreciating Godard’s œuvre beyond the 1960s with the same zeal I feel for his early movies, though even that later material has its occasional appeal. Despite my interest in the work, I have never explored the man’s life. And perhaps that’s for the best, at least according to his portrayal here. Pretentious and pedantic, overbearing and constantly argumentative, the Godard that emerges here is a real pain in the derrière, to friend and foe, alike. As Godard Mon Amour opens, he has just fallen in love with his lead actress in La Chinoise (1967), Anne Wiazemsky (an appropriately gamine-like Stacy Martin, The Last Photograph), and she with him. They’re 18 years apart in age, but she admires his uncompromising vision and he, her youthful charm. By the end of the story, which follows the trajectory of their relationship from these enchanted early days through its dissolution in 1970 (though a divorce wouldn’t be finalized until 1979), the things that attract will soon have repelled. And so it goes. Still, even Hazanavicius seems to find Godard as increasingly tiresome as does Wiazemsky, or at least the Godard of that period, crafting what feels like an elegy for the younger artist left behind.

For the Godard of 1967/1968 is at a major crossroads. Nearing 40, he no longer carries the same weight of radical youth with the rising generation of social revolutionaries. Paris is on the verge of the violent student protests of May, 1968, and his own movies, now subject to harsher critical appraisal than before, leave him dissatisfied. It’s a good time to lash out at everyone: intellectuals, faux intellectuals, fellow filmmakers, the bourgeoisie, the working class, his wife, anyone who doesn’t get him, etc. Worried about becoming a bore, he ensures that very reality by boring even himself. Still, the impish intelligence that made him a darling of the avant-garde is always present, lending hope to the idea that, maybe one day, we’ll get (a new and improved) Godard back. Nevertheless, that’s no way to build a marriage.

The original title of the movie, in French, is “Le Redoutable,” which refers to a cutting-edge nuclear submarine in trial deployment at that time; it’s a vessel that movies implacably forward, much as Godard was trying to do. And though I have never really liked the director’s post-1967 work, I have always admired his constant push to reinvent himself, however misguided the results. In that vein, the true joy of the film is its constant self-referential use of many of the techniques made popular by Godard and his New Wave peers, which include: direct address of the camera, clever chapter headings, text on and within the frame, symmetry of composition, long tracking shots, overtly expositional voiceover, and more. Beyond these, Hazanavicius adds the hilarious recurring motif of Godard tripping and falling, losing his glasses, which are then crushed, leaving him blind, over and over. It’s the perfect metaphor for a man who can’t see past his own nose. All of this also helps lend this story about a wet blanket a blast of fresh comedy at every turn. Godard may be tedious, but the movie about him is most definitely not.

Chloe Zhao (“Songs My Brothers Taught Me”) is a Beijing-born Chinese writer, director and producer who resides in the United States and studied political science at Mount Holyoke College and film production at NYU. “The Rider” (picked up by Sony Pictures Classics) is her second film and is filled with so much heart, subtle empathy and cinematic truth that it tugs at your soul with its poetry. There are moments revealed on camera that cannot be acted-communication between species and among friends who possess similar values and live with tragic consequences.

It is a semi-documentary film starring many real life family members that shared similar experiences. But, do not be misled, it a fictional narrative feature with shape and majesty. It is replete with western people, culture and the mesmerizing landscapes of South Dakota. It embodies principles of the slow film movement, comprised of intimate human interactions as well as breath-taking windswept visas. Yes, the colorful rodeo action is there, but sparingly.

Most of the drama comes from the star’s (Brady Jandreau) confrontation with “self”, within the intensity of the family of three and friends. The film’s tiny cast is often pictured huddled together amid the treeless environment, or cloistered in their ramshackle trailers, set behind barbed-wire fences-their fragility held upon the vastness of the plains.

Film Image: The Rider

What made this film such a standout at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the top prize at the Director’s fortnight sidebar competition, was its sensitivity revealing how the brain and body are inextricably intertwined as we watch a rising rodeo champ have to cut short a promising career due to a traumatic head injury. It is a poignant story of a slice of America that is inexorably slipping away.

Hello…! We are David & Amanda, also known as the Father/Daughter Film Report & would like to share with you some of the best films seen and screenplays read from all the film festivals we have covered, the submissions we have received & those “accidentally” found…

CLICK on the image below to see one of the Sci-Fi films that made our Official Selection in our FIRST THURSDAY’S FILM FESTIVAL:

It’s about screaming and loud yelling. Not to be left out, even Craig gets a screaming scene.

Its 1992 and Millie (Halle Berry) has a brood of eight foster children. They all live in a house run without much adult supervision. On this row-house street, right next to Millie’s house is, improbably placed, an apartment building. Millie’s neighbor is a writer-in-the-nude, Obie Hardison (Daniel Craig). With such a large group of kids, the noise level is always high and Obie shouts to Millie about it. Can’t she keep her kids quiet?

Millie’s eldest foster kid is Jesse Cooper (Lamar Johnson). A sincere, responsible kid, he helps out with the younger children.

Obie is also prone to screaming outbursts of irrational behavior. For some reason not made clear, he throws his sofa over his small balcony and then his dishwasher. So he’s a violent drunk.

The Rodney King trial – in which four white police officers are on trial for the beating of a black motorist – is ongoing and the news is filled with all the details. The community is getting excitable as a verdict draws near. The news outlets are preparing for the media-event – the riots and the louting. Which means everyone in the community has a free pass to run into supermarkets and other stores and take what they want.

When her youngest foster child is returned to his fresh out-of-prison parent, Millie weeps. Seeing police grabbing teenager William (Kaalan “KR” Walker), Millie takes responsibility for him and brings him home. Millie needs to keep 8 foster children or there must be paperwork and visits by child services.

Millie supplements the family’s finances by baking cakes but her children often go hungry. With foster care payments for eight children and food stamps available, why would three of Millie’s younger children go with William and steal food at a supermarket? What is Millie teaching these kids? Why didn’t Millie throw William out when she got home and saw a kitchen filled with junk food?

William is going to be a problem.

Millie might show each child love and attention and frolic with them in a tiny kids plastic wading pool, but she is not a disciplinarian and sets no moral guideposts.

Casting a quick glance of nude Obie, Millie has an erotic dream about having sex with him.

I’m thinking this scene was intentionally written as an enticement for Craig to take the part. The scene does not belong in the movie and it screams – Craig wanted a sex scene with Berry. Millie’s entire being has been focused only on her misbehaving children. Men seem to be the last thing on her mind. However, when she takes a look at nude Obie, she has a very satisfying dream about him. Given how sexy Millie is and the way she saunters down those South Central streets like a movie star, you wonder why no men are howling outside her windows.

Millie is a passionate woman. We can’t have Halle Berry in a movie and not show how sexy she is.

As the Rodney King verdict looms over the community, Millie’s kids go missing. They do not listen to her. Usually, people with a lot of children know how to handle the chaos. Millie goes with the flow. Millie spends a lot of time screaming and running around looking for her kids.

It would be interesting to see the 1992 riots from a foreigner’s perspective, but French-based Turkish writer-director Deniz Gamze Erguven does not have a strong point-of-view. Using archival footage of the riots, the King beating, the corrupt cops, and the riots, one would assume Erguven is sympathetic, but then her story veers in the opposite direction.

The looting and destruction is shown, and Millie finds her youngest children stealing things – again. When Millie and Obie are chained to a pole its not to show the cop’s over-the-top rant but written to give Millie and Obie some sexy time together. Yet, when Millie tells her kid to stay in the car, he ignores her and does as he pleases. He doesn’t even consider helping.

The sweet, responsible Jessie gets entangles with a girl that goes off with William and the outcome is shocking. Jessie is not who we thought he was.

The characters are woefully underwritten. Is Millie a selfless caregiver to children? Why is she allowing the kids to “raise themselves”? The character of Obie must be a seven-day paycheck. He goes from being a nude, alcoholic failed writer without any patience for children, to a loving, devoted and engaged caregiver to Millie’s children. What happened? What is he doing in an apartment in South Central? Would Obie be an ideal mate for Millie? Could Halle Berry be in a movie without any male lusting for her?

Erguven should not have compromised to accommodate movie stars Berry and Craig. If Erguven had written about a true foster family, she would have made a more authentic film.

The third collaboration between director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody, who previously brought us Juno and Young Adult, Tully stars Charlize Theron, who played the lead in that second movie, as well. Here, she’s Marlo, a stressed-out middle-class mother of two, whose husband, though faithful and caring, is always at work, leaving the bulk of the child-rearing to her. With a third kid on the way, Marlo’s not sure how she’ll manage. Until, that is, her wealthy brother offers to pay for a “night nanny” to help with the extra burden, referencing some major postpartum depression that sis suffered through last time. Though at first resistant, Marlo relents once things get too tough. Welcome to the home, Tully!

Who knew this was a thing? People with money, I suppose. In any case, this movie worried me a lot, at first, seeming to go in one unfortunate direction, extolling the virtues of a helpmate that few can afford. Instead, it becomes something much richer, exploring the toll that parenthood – primarily motherhood – can take on many people, in this frantic modern world of ours, especially those without the means to farm out labor to others. Tully also examines the bitter pill of youthful dreams unrealized. It’s too bad that so much of the writing, of both dialogue and situation, is trapped in first-draft triteness. Kudos to everyone for trying, though …

One thing is clear, however, whatever one may think of the film and its script: this is not a comedy, despite the efforts of all involved to market it as such. Perhaps it’s a dramedy, but not even that, really. No, it’s a well-intentioned effort (in need of revisions) at drama, with a few occasional light touches. Don’t go in expecting a barrel of laughs, as you’ll be in for disappointment.

Still, Theron delivers a fine performance, and so does Mackenzie Davis (Always Shine), as the titular character. Ron Livingston (Addicted to Fresno), as Drew, Marlo’s hubby, is his usual appealing self, and Mark Duplass (Creep 2), as the rich sibling, adds a few quality notes. It’s more than watchable, but also almost dispiritingly obvious and simplistic, by the end. Truths are stated, lessons learned, and platitudes spoken. Got it. Check. On to the next thing.

Hello…! We are David & Amanda, also known as the Father/Daughter Film Report & would like to share with you some of the best films seen and screenplays read from all the film festivals we have covered, the submissions we have received & those “accidentally” found…

CLICK on the image below to see the interview with screenplay writer Tyler Cochran whose script “A Poor Man’s Agent” is an Official Selection in our FIRST THURSDAY’S FILM FESTIVAL:

The Inside Doesn’t Count Unless the Outside is Beautiful. Are we really going to say that “looks don’t matter” in today’s culture? I read the U.K.’s Daily Mail Online and every day the Kardashians/Jenners and Emily Ratajkowski post nude photos of themselves on their social media accounts. I know, its self-promotion for a high-paying slot during yachting season but it’s also advertising that promotes nakedness, constructed facial features and extreme thinness. These are the de rigueur assets for being recognized as beautiful. And there are benefits.

And if you were not born beautiful, but have unlimited resources, you can follow the lead of facial-alteration pioneer,Khloé Kardashian. Khloé struggled with her appearance from day one, mainly because of being bullied at school. She once said she suffered years of abuse and was tormented for being “ugly” and “fat.” She said: “I’ve been bullied, basically, my entire life.” Khloé, through the kind of will and determination that made men conquerors, has re-designed her body.

Amy Schumer, the star of I FEEL PRETTY, knows what it is like to be average-looking. She’s not 110lbs with a perfect nose and razor-sharp cheekbones. Instead, she channeled her energy in being funny, creative, and daring. Schumer’s sexy confidence is seductive, but she will never make Maxim’s 2018 “Hot 100” list. Everything the writers-directors, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, present here is true. No matter how crass, mean-spirited, and downright offensive it is to say, who can deny that being beautiful holds an important status in our society.

According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in fall 2010 titled, “When It Comes to Pay, Do the Thin Win? The Effect of Weight on Pay for Men and Women,” a woman’s weight can have a significant impact on her earnings. In 2010, the study showed that (1)“Very thin” women earned approximately $22,000 more than their average weight counterparts.(2)“Thin” women earned a little over $7,000 more than their average weight counterparts. (3)“Heavy” and “Very Heavy” women lost over $9,000 and almost $19,000, respectively, than their average weight counterparts.

Renee Bennett (Schumer) is just an average woman in her thirties. Renee lives in Manhattan and is constantly being ignored and is less valued because she is overweight and flabby with mismatched facial features. Renee does have fantastic hair. She suffers from the indifference she gets. Well, she should move to the mid-West. Everyone knows New York and Hollywood are obsessed with youth and beauty. No one over 40 lives in Manhattan unless they have a rent-controlled apartment they cannot give up.

Renee’s 2 best friends Vivian (Aidy Bryant) and Jane (Busy Phillips) are also not very successful at dating. Vivian is short and very fat. Jane looks as if she is in the grip of some kind of chemical withdrawal. Renee does know it is her lack of fitness and self-confidence. She works in a basement selling cosmetics online. Her ideal dream job is working as a receptionist for CEO Avery LeClaire’s (Michele Williams) cosmetic empire at the Fifth Avenue headquarters. Every woman at the company is anorexic and monosyllabic. Did I mention that being monosyllabic is also a defining feature of the vaunted beautiful?

Fayum Mummies

A large cache of mummies was found in the Fayum oasis. Each sarcophagi had a highly realistic portrait – supposedly – of the person inside. Yet few of the Fayum images show elderly men and women; a large proportion, conversely, depict healthy-looking boys and girls who stand at the cusp of adulthood. The belief of ancient Egyptians was that images could influence the forms that souls took in the afterlife. Mummy portraits were very carefully created not as facsimiles of real people, but as ideals. They show the faces in which, their subjects hoped, they would live on in an equally ideal eternity.

Renee decides to join a spin cycle class and meets gorgeous Mallory (Emily Ratajkowski). Mallory is so thin her mouth has eaten her face. Renee asks Emily if it’s true that being so beautiful means its Cote d’Azur in July and nude sunbathing at Platja de ses Salines in September? If only she looked like Emily!

As the trailer and TV spots show, Renee falls off the bike and hits her head. When she gets up, she firmly believes she is beautiful. And here is where I FEEL PRETTY turns clever and begins its positive message. Renee, now beautiful, flaunts her beauty. She thinks everyone is looking at her. The world belongs to Renee.

“And beauty is a form of genius— is higher, indeed, than genius, as itneeds no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.” The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Film Image: I Feel Pretty

When she meets Ethan (Rory Scovel), behind her at the dry cleaners, she immediately thinks he is hitting on her. She can only hear her own thoughts. Renee is so confident that she overwhelms an astonished Ethan. He goes along only because Renee is unlike any other woman. Her belief in her beauty is an all-encompassing vortex. Her imperial confidence in herself is hypnotic.

The new Renee goes to the LeClair and applies for a job as the receptionist. The staff is appalled – you know the type – they always look like they smell something bad. They exude indifference. If Jesus walked in for an appointment, they would make him take a seat and wait.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Does beauty vary by race, culture or era? The evidence, however, shows that our perception of physical beauty is hard wired into our being and based on how closely the features of one’s face reflect phi in their proportions. The Golden Ratio appears extensively in the human face.

When Renee gives her opinion to Avery’s over-bearing mother, Lily LeClair (Lauren Hutton), about what ladies really want in drugstore cosmetics, she gets the job. Now a member of the hip set, Renee begins to treat Vivian and Jane with the same kind of dismissive attitude as everyone else has.

Its Renee’s relationship with Ethan that is really funny, especially how concerned he is when she wants to join the bikini contest. You’ve got to give it to Schumer, she lets it all hang out.

Film Image: I Feel Pretty

Is Schumer telling the truth about how beauty is exalted as the only thing that matters? It is the truth, so be it.

All the women in the movie are extremely thin and weird-looking. Renee’s idol, Avery, has a slew of insecurities fueled by her grandmother. She has a high-pitched voice and a slight stutter.

Schumer shows a considerable lack of vanity and is true to the part. She has developed strong acting skills evidenced here. If there are any complaints about the glorification of beauty, it is because we are uncomfortable admitting it is true. In a fair and non-judgmental world, where everyone was equal, being beautiful would not matter.

The average height and weight of women varies around the world, but in the United States in 2010, the average adult female height was 63.8 inches (approximately 5 feet 4 inches) and 166.2 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ratajkowski does not look her best neither does Phillips. In the same vein as HALLOW HAL, it’s the redemption of the leading character you wait for. Will Renee finally recognize that looks don’t matter? We are left confident in knowing Renee wakes up to the ideal that it is not looks, but the way you feel about yourself that is key.

I would add, if being beautiful is not your best trait, work on charisma and charm everyone you meet.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (“Captain America: Civil War”) from a script by Christopher Markus and Kevin Freely (all three Captain America films)”Infinity War”is Marvel’s most expensive venture yet ($300 million), clocking in at 149 minutes with approximately $2 million dollars spent per finished minute. It delivers an unending litany of explosions and action, adventure and illusion like rarely seen before. It is a Disney production that meets the criteria of 21st Century Hollywood films, being that it is a tentpole, franchise pic which is unmistakably a world-wide “event”and employs intensified continuity. Disney-owned Marvel Studios has released 18 previous comic book movies in what is called the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a gross of nearly $15 billion dollars.

‘Infinity War” is the first film of a two-part sequel continuing the tradition started with “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The story, which is confusing and exciting at the same time is about how the universe is under attack from an evil villain named Thanos (Josh Brolin)who has been causing minor conflagrations in the past upping his game to something more serious and threatening such as serial interstellar mass murder! Let’s just say he is capable of creating one million 9/11 style attacks, at a single time universally, by employing the power of the six “infinity stones”to kill half of the living beings in the universe.

Film Image – Avengers: Infinity War

For some of the audience the story meant very little-they wanted to chill with their super-hero friends and ever since “Dead Pool” brought a self deprecating humor to the tone of these super-hero movies, we have some frivolity to amuse and entertain between explosions. For the loyal fans this is as good as it gets until the sequel arrives in May of 2019.